附近上门

With more purchases moving online in 2020 due to the global pandemic, customer service shifted online, too.

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aims to be the leader of managing a company鈥檚 digital customer service and is now boosted by a $78 million Series C round of funding.

Back when the company, based in New York and Estonia, started in 2012, the concept of –or pairing web and mobile experiences with digital communication choices, on-screen collaboration and artificial intelligence-enabled assistance–was relatively unknown, Glia鈥檚 co-founder and CEO told 附近上门 News.

鈥淎t that time, it was hard to get rich interactions digitally between businesses and customers,鈥� Michaeli said. 鈥淒igital has come a long way in eight years, and now we are reinventing customer service in this world. In the past, digital customer service was reserved for those being forward-thinking or digital-first, and today, it鈥檚 become a must-have.鈥�

Existing investor led the funding, bringing Glia鈥檚 total fundraising to $107 million, which includes a , also led by Insight, raised in 2019, according to 附近上门 data.

Glia went after the Series C after experiencing more than 150 percent growth in 2020, Michaeli said.

As a result, he intends on 鈥渄oubling down and focusing on this opportunity,鈥� which includes adding to its team in every aspect, from sales to marketing to product development, to scale. It will also invest heavily in technology, engineering and in the adoption process of its tools.

There is also more evidence digital customer service is growing: This week, social media management platform announced its acquisition of , a customer engagement tool that enables one-on-one messaging via social channels. In addition, a claims that by 2023 more than 40 percent of customer service will be automated.

Meanwhile, the company has 100 employees, and Michaeli expects that number to exceed 200 by the end of 2021. Glia is already working with 150 customers, but he sees that number increasing as well.

鈥淭he demand and mindset is there, and we see a similar growth trajectory this year, so we wanted to make sure we were capitalized for that demand,鈥� he added. 鈥淲e want to facilitate their transformation and help clients achieve it through our success team and sales.鈥�

, managing director at Insight Partners, said in an interview that the firm invests in large tech-growth companies that have already achieved product market fit and are still growing, what he referred to as 鈥渟cale ups.鈥�

Between Glia鈥檚 year-over-year growth and customer feedback, there was clear evidence that the company fit that area, Jaffe said.

鈥淥ne of the nice things is that the market is pulling for digital right now,鈥� he added. 鈥淏efore, companies were saying they should be rolling this out, but doing so is hard, so they would do it later. This year, many companies are saying 鈥榠f we don鈥檛 do this, we don鈥檛 exist.鈥欌��

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