Subscribe to the SA国际传媒 Daily

Existing backers , , , and also put money in the round. The Toronto, Ontario-based company has now raised a total of just over $60 million since its 2014 inception, according to SA国际传媒 data. This latest financing is more than triple the amount raised in its , led by New York-based FirstMark, in December 2018, according to SA国际传媒.

The company declined to disclose the valuation at which the Series B was raised.

Ada, a SaaS operator, has built an AI chatbot onto its ACX platform with the goal of helping companies such as , , and save money and improve customer satisfaction. It currently has more than 100 customers.

I hopped on the phone with CEO and co-founder to get a better understanding of what the company does.

鈥淲e鈥檙e on a mission to strengthen customer relationships through an incredibly easy-to-use automation platform,鈥� he said. 鈥淣on-technical teams use a Lego-like block building experience to build a chatbot that automates upwards of 80 percent of all customer conversations.鈥�

Ada can train its chatbot to understand and address topics specific to each business while getting up and running in weeks. A proprietary Natural Language Understanding engine helps the chatbot to understand meaning and context without perfectly constructed sentences, 鈥渁llowing it to navigate around jargon, typos, spelling errors and more than 100 different languages,鈥� according to the company.

The Ada advantage

The benefits of using Ada, Murchison said, include a dramatic reduction in customer service wait times. For example, one customer, AirAsia (with more than 100 million passengers) said the use of Ada cut down its wait time from one hour to less than 60 seconds.

It also increases customer satisfaction for an increase of 50 to 60 percent in rates in some cases, according to Murchison. Plus, it allows 鈥渁 perfect memory of clients.鈥�

鈥淲henever you talk to an Ada-powered bot, it always remembers who you are,鈥� he told SA国际传媒 News. 鈥淎nd then it鈥檚 always improving based on the conversation you had.鈥�

Additionally, it can automate the purchase of software for SaaS (software-as-a-service) companies.

鈥淲e鈥檙e turning what used to be a customer service cost center into a revenue generator,鈥� Murchison said. 鈥淲e鈥檝e built an operating system for the customer experience.鈥�

The company claims it helps automate over tens of millions conversations annually, and has: reduced customer wait time up to 98 percent; solved more than 70 percent of customer inquiries 鈥渋nstantly鈥�; and achieved customer satisfaction scores of 90 percent.

Growth

While Ada is not yet profitable, it鈥檚 been seeing ARR (annual recurring revenue) growth. According to Murchison, ARR tripled in 2018 and 2019, and he expects it to triple again this year.

The company has 150 employees, 100 of whom were hired over the past year, and its new capital will go toward deepening the sophistication of Ada鈥檚 technology.

鈥淲e doubled our average automation rate last year, and we have a long roadmap of new ML features we鈥檙e going to accelerate the growth of with this new round,鈥� Murchison told me. 鈥淲e also want to expand our capabilities so we can support greater diversity and use cases, and types of customers.鈥�

Ada also plans to use its new funds to 鈥済o more global.鈥� Currently, 30 percent of its business is outside North America.

鈥淚 think it will be a lot more than that in the next couple of years,鈥� Murchison said.

Investor POV

础肠肠别濒鈥檚 said his firm was impressed with the origin of Ada. The co-founders, Murchison and , actually created the product to solve a pain point around scaling customer support they were facing at another company.

鈥淭hey pivoted the business to solve the problem,鈥� Fletcher said. 鈥淎nd they have done it in such a way that gives customer service reps as well as business users and owners an opportunity to make their own tweaks–even if they are not technical. That not needing to have access to a development team is empowering.鈥�

Accel invested in another Toronto-based SaaS company, , last year. In that case, Accel wrote its largest initial check ever, leading a $200 million round for the company in its first external funding in its 14-year history.

Blog Roll Illustration:

Subscribe to the SA国际传媒 Daily

According to the filing, the company has raised a little over $71 million of a round aiming to raise up to $83.85 million in fresh capital for the company. Rigetti Computing disclosed in its filing that the total amount raised and the total offering amount includes approximately $23.85 million1 from the conversion of convertible securities into equity in the company.

The filing states that, so far, 65 investors contributed capital to the round, and that the company received its first capital commitment for the round on Feb. 18, 2020.

, an investor with , is a new addition to the company’s board. It’s typical for lead investors to take a board seat following a deal, so it’s likely that Bessemer is the lead investor in Rigetti’s latest round.

According to SA国际传媒 data, the company has in prior funding. Rigetti’s last round was closed in November 2017.

Depending on whether the convertible securities mentioned in today’s filing were previously reported, the company has now raised between $166.7 million and $190.5 million, and it is authorized to raise $12.8 million more in this offering.

The company’s valuation and information about which investors participated in the deal have not been disclosed at this time. Previously disclosed the likes of , , , , and , among others.

滨濒濒耻蝉迟谤补迟颈辞苍:听

Subscribe to the SA国际传媒 Daily

听补苍诲 led the financing.聽, , and others also participated, bringing the company鈥檚 total funding to $97 million since its November 2016 inception.

New York-based K Health has developed an app that uses AI and anonymized health records to augment the diagnoses of health problems. It claims to be the first startup to use true AI in consumer health at the primary care level, as Holden Page wrote at the time of the startup鈥檚 $12.5 million Series A. 聽The company launched its consumer product in mid-2018.

How it works

K Health works by leveraging AI-driven health data that was accumulated over two decades by tracking billions of anonymized health events. (That data was collected by Maccabi, the second-largest HMO in Israel.) K Health has taken that data to create a predictive model aimed at enabling people to learn more about their health by comparing themselves to other people with similar characteristics such as gender, age, symptoms and medical history.

Users can chat with a licensed doctor for a diagnosis and prescription for $14 for a consultation, or $39 for an annual subscription, according to co-founder and CEO .

鈥淜 uses technology to reduce barriers to quality primary care,鈥� he said. “Our users are able to get instant answers about their symptoms and chat with a doctor within minutes, all for 90 percent less than the cost of traditional primary care practices.鈥�

With K Health, people can get a more reliable and accurate way to have an initial understanding of what they might have in addition to which drugs other people with a similar history took, Bloch explained.

K is available in all 50 states, and K Primary Care, the option to chat with a doctor, is available in 47 states, covering 300 million people.

The company seems to be growing quickly. Bloch said it recently saw its 3 millionth user after reaching 1 million in June 2019 and 2 million in November 2019.聽K Health also now employs 200 people, which is up from about 80 one year ago.

Bloch declined to comment on growth metrics such as revenue or profitability.

Looking ahead

K Health will use the latest capital infusion to scale its model and move primary care to mobile devices in an effort to improve access to health care on a global scale.

As part of that, K Health is making its app available in Spanish and plans to introduce it in additional languages 鈥渨ithin weeks.鈥�

Recently, K Health partnered with insurance giant Anthem (also an investor) to provide access to its more than 40 million members. Looking ahead, the company is also eyeing a global expansion 鈥渢o strategically important countries.鈥�

鈥淭his new funding will enable us to bring easy and affordable primary care to people in more languages and geographies,鈥� Bloch said. 鈥淲e will also be expanding the scope of what our primary care platform can diagnose and treat to include more chronic condition management services, pediatrics, and more.鈥�

For, Mark Tluszcz, founder and CEO of Mangrove Capital Partners, “free quality health information is a promise no one has been able to deliver on until K Health entered the market.

“K鈥檚 efforts to provide the most precise and relevant medical information along with 24/7 medical care and doctor conversations 鈥� underscores the need for better healthcare realities for people struggling to afford care and the medical community challenged by a lack of doctor accessibility,” he said in a written statement.

In general, we’ve seen a rise in digital health startups. Recently, I wrote about , a digital physical therapy company focused on chronic musculoskeletal conditions, closing on a $90 million Series C round of funding led by . Last week, I also covered , a digital health platform, emerging from stealth with a $40 million round of funding led by (a16z).

Illustration:

Subscribe to the SA国际传媒 Daily

Beyond Pricing鈥檚 automated data-driven software – which the company claims to be 鈥渢he first of its kind in the industry鈥� – is aimed at independent property owners, managers and developers, a group the company says are 鈥渦nderserved.鈥�

These independents are 鈥渋ncreasingly fighting off competition in the form of VC-backed vacation rental platforms and hospitality conglomerates that are entering the fast-growing space,鈥� Beyond Pricing said.

It charges 1 percent per booking, with the goal of hitting “that sweet spot in terms of supply and demand.”

The startup defines short-term rentals as vacation rentals, such as the homes and apartments you鈥檇 find on Airbnb or HomeAway, as well as other rentals like apart-hotels, which are increasing in popularity across the U.S.

鈥淎ny property that serves as a home base for a short-term stay, in the same fashion as a hotel might, is a property we can serve,鈥� said CEO .

Background

Co-founded in 2013 by McHenry and CTO (veterans of the airline and hotel industries), the San Francisco-based company said it leverages over 10 billion proprietary data points in an effort 鈥渢o make the most accurate pricing recommendations in the industry.鈥� Its goal is to give independents the ability to 鈥渃ompetitively price their properties, regardless of the platform they list on, and see up to a 40 percent increase in revenue.鈥�

鈥淥ur customers make up the majority of the short term rental industry, but don鈥檛 have the resources to invest in their own software, and have traditionally relied on analog ways of pricing their properties,鈥� McHenry said.

It鈥檚 platform agnostic so its software integrates with sites like Airbnb and VRBO, as well as systems like HomeAway Software and Streamline, to give property owners and managers the ability 鈥渢o harness..[its] big data machine learning algorithms to automatically adjust and update their prices everywhere they list.鈥�

Beyond Pricing previously raised a total of $3.5 million in in 2015 and 2016. Via email, McHenry said the company鈥檚 revenue grew by over 2.5 times last year. Its headcount has also climbed to 60, compared to 25 a year ago.

Looking Ahead

Beyond Pricing currently dynamically prices more than 150,000 listings in over 7,000 cities globally, and has priced more than $2 billion in bookings. The company plans to use its new capital to develop an expanded suite of products. It also plans to grow its presence in Europe, starting with an office in Lisbon, Portugal.

鈥淲e have spent so much time proving our model with our existing customers that we鈥檙e keenly aware of what their unique pain points are,鈥� McHenry wrote. 鈥淚n addition, the short term rental and vacation rental market in Europe is twice that of the US, so while we plan to continue to expand in the US we see a huge opportunity to continue to grow in Europe.鈥�

, a partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, said Beyond Pricing is an example of a company that is 鈥渢ransforming鈥� an industry that has been 鈥渉istorically underserved by software.鈥�

鈥淲hile hotels have fully embraced technology and dynamic pricing, the short term rental industry is still underpenetrated,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e were impressed with the Beyond Pricing team鈥檚 ability to consistently deliver revenue growth for their customers and think they are positioned to become the market leader in short term rental software.鈥�

Illustration: