Cresta Closes $125M Series D to Accelerate Adoption of Human-Centric AI in the Contact Center

The latest funding will help Cresta double down on its existing product suite, scale its go-to-market efforts, and rapidly develop the next generation of virtual agents

PALO ALTO, Calif., Nov. 19, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Cresta, the end-to-end generative AI platform for contact centers, today announced the closing of its $125 million Series D round of financing. The round was led by new investors World Innovation Lab (WiL) and QIA with participation from Accenture, EnvisionX Capital, LG Technology Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures, and Workday Ventures. The round also includes returning investors Andreessen Horowitz, Greylock Partners, J.P. Morgan, Sequoia Capital, and Tiger Global. This brings the company's total funding to over $270 million.

There is increased pressure in the contact center space to drastically drive down costs while improving customer loyalty and top-line revenue. Cresta provides a unified platform for human and AI agents that transforms customer conversations and workflows at every level of the contact center. With Cresta, customers can uncover real-time insights and behavioral best practices in order to scale winning behaviors across their human agents, while automating mundane tasks using virtual agents.

"Cresta provides Fortune 500 companies like Intuit and Verizon with leading AI-powered technology that empowers them with clear competitive advantages," said Ping Wu, Chief Executive Officer at Cresta. "With this latest round of financing, we look forward to expanding our end-to-end AI platform to help dramatically reimagine how contact centers function and expand the use of human-centric AI to both augment human agents to make them more effective and save costs using human-like virtual agents."

Cresta today also announced several major milestones for the company:

• In the last two years, the company has nearly quadrupled its annual recurring revenue (ARR) and nearly doubled its customer base.
• Cresta will be rapidly scaling R&D, opening two new engineering hubs in Romania and India to add to existing offices in Palo Alto, San Francisco, New York, Berlin, and Toronto.
• Cresta has appointed Rob Theis, General Partner and Chief Investment Officer at WiL, to the company's board of directors.

"Ping and the Cresta team consistently show that they have what it takes to succeed in the contact center AI space," said Rob Theis, General Partner and Chief Investment Officer at WiL (World Innovation Lab). "We were impressed by Cresta's track record with Fortune 500 companies and we view Cresta as the strongest end-to-end platform in the market. They are defining the next era of contact centers with best-in-class AI performance."

Cresta's end-to-end platform is trusted by the world's leading contact centers to drive powerful business outcomes.

• Brinks Home, one of North America's leading home security and alarm monitoring companies, selected Cresta to transform their contact center operations and revitalize customer engagement. By combining real-time agent assistance with Cresta's AI-driven quality management (QM) and coaching capabilities, Brinks Home was able to cut QM costs by 50%, increase first-call resolution to 75%, and boost the company's net-promoter score by 30 points.

"Partnering with Cresta has enabled us to build stronger customer connections, boost retention, and drive revenue," said William E. Niles, CEO of Brinks Home. "We have transformed customer conversations into a competitive edge, cutting call transfers from 30% to 8%—a 73% improvement. In addition, we are thrilled to partner with Cresta to use their next-generation virtual agent platform to dramatically reduce costs and reinvest in the business in other ways. It's going to be a complete game changer for Brinks Home."

The funding follows Cresta being named to the Forbes AI 50  List of Top Artificial Intelligence Companies of 2024, recognition in Forrester's Real Time Revenue Executions Platforms Q2 20224 Wave, and the announcement of several new, human-centric AI solutions for the contact center in early 2024.

To learn more about Cresta, please visit https://cresta.com/.

About Cresta:
Cresta is on a mission to turn every customer conversation into a competitive advantage by unlocking the true potential of the contact center. Cresta's platform combines the best of AI and human intelligence to help contact centers discover customer insights and behavioral best practices, automate conversations and inefficient processes, and empower every team member to work smarter and faster. Powering customer experiences for companies like Cox Communications, Hilton, and Carmax, Cresta helps turn every conversation into an opportunity. Follow our blog and connect with us on LinkedIn and X.

About WIL:
WiL (World Innovation Lab) is a venture capital firm that partners with leading global corporations and government entities in Japan and Asia. With offices in Palo Alto, California, and Tokyo, the firm's mission is to serve as a bridge between startups and corporations in the United States and Asia, with a particular focus on Japan. WiL supports its portfolio companies by establishing corporate partnerships that enable U.S. and European startups to scale globally, and Japanese startups to innovate and globalize. WiL invests in emerging technology spanning fintech, insurtech, automation and productivity, cybersecurity, cloud infrastructure, developer tools, health tech and sustainability. Notable WiL investments that have exited to public markets from Fund I and Fund II include Asana, Mercari, Raksul, Wise and Auth0 — whose acquisition by Okta was completed in May 2021. WiL also invests in exceptional venture funds, and supports its LPs in corporate venture investment efforts. For more, visit https://wil.vc/

About QIA:
QIA is the sovereign wealth fund of the State of Qatar. QIA was founded in 2005 to invest and manage the state reserve funds. QIA is among the largest and most active sovereign wealth funds globally. QIA invests across a wide range of asset classes and regions as well as in partnership with leading institutions around the world to build a global and diversified investment portfolio with a long-term perspective that can deliver sustainable returns and contribute to the prosperity of the State of Qatar.

SOURCE Cresta