High growth at Ultimate, as #1 rated virtual agent platform celebrates 5th birthday with new expansion milestones
BERLIN, Nov. 15, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Ultimate, the #1 customer support automation platform according to G2 customer reviews, is today celebrating a series of expansion milestones on the eve of its 5th birthday, with two new executives joining to lead go-to-market expansion globally, a record-breaking Q3, and continued product innovation in the application of AI to solve costly problems in customer service.
To spearhead global growth Henrique Moniz de Aragao joins as EVP, Sales with Will McInnes joining as Chief Marketing Officer. Aragao joins to lead Ultimate's commercial teams following a highly successful period of >100% year-on-year growth at G2 as General Manager of the EMEA business, leading new market entry and expansion across the region. G2 recently raised $157m Series D at a $1.1bn valuation. McInnes joins after 7 years as an executive at Brandwatch based in NYC, USA and Brighton, UK, scaling from $20m revenues to $105m culminating in a successful exit to Cision in June this year.
Reflecting on these two senior go-to-market appointments, CEO & Co-Founder Reetu Kainulainen said "Henrique and Will bring deep expertise in scaling internationally and the domain expertise to lead their respective areas - we've been growing fast, now with them onboard we have the leadership team in place to double down on our market-leading approach".
In Q3, the company celebrated 120% growth against target, acquiring new brands including Vodafone, Gorillas & F-Secure in addition to strong organic customer expansion, with one global Fortune 500 brand expanding by 600%+. The company's partnerships are scaling too: Ultimate is partnering with hyper-growth startup Dixa to provide a best-in-class automation experience as both companies rapidly grow their US market presence.
In October virtual agents powered by Ultimate automated 43% of all interactions, delivering faster resolutions for consumers - by collecting and validating customer information, automatically responding to customer inquiries and automating back office processes - while presenting human agents with the prioritized customer care issues that most needed their support.
Deploying funds from its $20M Series A in December 2020, Ultimate now numbers over 109 full-time employees across the globe. To deliver on its mission to build the most powerful platform in the industry the company continues to invest substantially in innovation - with over half of all team members in R&D, and a commitment to substantial quarterly product releases. In Q3 the company launched a pioneering Training Center, giving non-technical customer support teams an intuitive, no-code toolset for training their virtual agents. Prior to this, product launches centered around an industry-leading Impact Report, providing a data-driven roadmap of automation priorities based on historical support data, and a brand-new Ticket Automation product, using AI to free up human agents from the most repetitive support ticket tasks.
With an eye on continued acceleration in 2022, CEO Reetu Kainulainen said: "Since raising Series A 11 months ago we have been intensely focused on execution: our team is now 3x the size, our customers are rolling out our platform to new territories and languages, and with these two new revenue leaders and our first sales team in the US hired we are incredibly excited. But - and there is a but - this market is huge and accelerating. Improving the way customer service happens globally is an absolutely massive opportunity and one we are committed to for the long haul, so even with the excitement we are also feeling like we're just a fraction of the way towards our end goal".
About Ultimate
Ultimate's AI-powered virtual agent platform helps customer support teams to reduce costs and increase customer satisfaction. It does this by providing end consumers with the frictionless, fast and on-brand support experiences they expect, across chat, email and messaging and in 96 languages. The company's technology integrates with Zendesk, Salesforce and Freshworks, providing a seamless customer experience by connecting front-office touchpoints to back-office systems. Headquartered in Berlin with offices in Helsinki and New York, customers include Vodafone, Finnair, Cox & Cox, Gorillas and Teleclinic. Customer reviews on G2 rate Ultimate as the best provider in its category.
SOURCE Ultimate
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