Symbl.ai recently raised $17 million in Series A funding, as the company continues its rapid growth trajectory as a SaaS business.
For the company, which creates AI that understands human conversations, it’s another milestone as it expands its revenue and customer bases. Today, the company is valued at $80 million, with a revenue multiplier of 50x.
- Firm has 54 employees in India and the United States
- Converting millions of minutes of conversations
- Customer base is in high double digits
Symbl.ai Drives Growth of 4X in Valuation
Symbl.ai allows companies to leverage the data contained in conversations. The platform allows what the company calls Conversation Intelligence as a Service.
Using this intelligence, companies can optimize the value of engagements via customer service conversations, telemedicine, partner collaborations, and more.
Using an API platform, Symbl.ai allows customers to deploy conversational intelligence at scale. The current valuation of $80 million is four times the $20 million company valuation in 2020.
Company Founded in 2018 by Two Partners, Has Double-Digit Customer Base
The company captures voice, video, SMS messages, and email information. The AI-driven platform provides its customers with services including:
- Transcription
- Insights
- Topics
- Timelines
The company’s plug-and-play tools have utility in multiple areas, including:
- Capturing follow-up needs from sales calls
- Providing insights on video calls
- Automating action items
- Analyzing customer intent from chat interactions
The company was founded in 2018 and today has a double-digit customer base that’s growing steadily.
Pricing Begins at 0.058 Cents Per Minute
The company’s programmable platform is domain-agnostic and allows developers and businesses to monitor, act and comply with voice and video conversations at scale. The platform integrates with existing products and workflows without requiring customers to build in-house data science expertise.
The company’s pricing structure provides customers with multiple plan options. The service is offered both to developers and to enterprise organizations.
There is a pay-as-you-go option with no commitment that starts at 0.058 cents per minute. That offer includes not just speech-to-text services, but also intelligence, insights, and analytics.
Volume Deals Land Upwards of $200,000 from Top Customers
Depending on the tier its customers choose, Symbl.ai can garner $100,000 to $200,000 for those with committed volume deals. The company charges both on volume and usage.
The company focuses on usage – based on the number of minutes analyzed on the platform — and does not sell based on seats.
Its largest customer has an annual valuation $150,000 to $200,000.
Its ACV is about $40,000 among committed customers.
Revenue Multiple Hits 50X
For its latest Series A financing round, the company boasted a 50X revenue multiple. There has been a remarkable growth in revenue in the past two years.
The company did not launch its self-service option until post-COVID and the growth has come in the past 12-14 months.
Company Reaches $1.8 Million in ARR
The rapid growth has resulted in $1.8 million in ARR, up from $120,000 in 2020. Its net revenue retention rate is 125 percent.
The company also boasts a steady cash flow with MRR sitting at $250,000, compared to $10,000 in 2020, and an ARPU of $3,000.
Company Projects Top Customers to Approach $1 Million
Symbl.ai sees the opportunity near for having customers that are approaching $1 million in annual revenue. The company is an active conversation with several customers about reaching that threshold.
First Customer from LinkedIn Outreach, Expects to Reach 100 Customers in 1Q of 2022
Founded in May 2018, the company’s first customer came via a cold outreach on LinkedIn. The founders pitched the idea of automating meeting notes out of the customer’s platform.
That outreach resulted in a phone call, a pitch meeting, and the first pilot agreement signed.
Customer Growth Driven By SEO, Hackathons as It Nears 100 Customers in 2022
Today, the company has a customer base of 70. It is expected to reach 100 customers in early 2022.
Its customer acquisition strategy focuses on generating organic content and SEO. The company also hosts developer hackathons and community events to garner interest.
In the company’s product-led acquisition strategy, Symbl.ai tracks developers who sign up and are activated. It then assesses which developers’ domains are activated and either reaches out directly or to those domains’ product teams.
Today, the company has a customer base of 70. It is expected to reach 100 customers in early 2022.
Company Converting 5-10 Million Minutes Per Month
Today, the company is converting 5-10 million minutes of information monthly. That pace has been in place for seven to eight months as the company has refined its use cases in areas where customers are seeing value – accessibility, compliance, and call tracking.
Its growth rate is 20 percent more minutes per month.
$17 Million Series A Funding Round Closed Recently
The major growth in minutes drove the company’s latest funding round. The $17 million in Series A funding is led by Great Point Ventures, which has extensive experience in scaling enterprise companies.
The company will use the new investment to spark expansion in developer outreach and evangelism and content generation.
Earlier Seed Rounds Brought in Millions
That investment follows a seed round of $4.7 million in capital in 2020. There were earlier seed rounds of $120,000 in February 2019 and $1.8 million in September 2019. Techstars was among the earlier investors.
The company believes that potential customers are recognizing that simply transcribing video and audio content is no longer enough. The company’s insights and analytics deliver more.
Global Workforce of 54 Expected to Grow
Today, the company employs 54, about 80 percent of whom are engineers. In 2020, the company employed 38 people.
About 65 percent of the company’s workforce is in Bangalore and New Delhi, India. The remaining employees are in the United States, with most in Seattle and others in the Bay Area and Boulder, Colorado.
Co-Founders Have Technology Background
Surbhi Rathore is the CEO and co-founder of Symbl.ai. She co-founded Symbl.ai has experience in technical and customer-centric roles in both startups and enterprise companies. Previous companies include Nevis Networks and Amdocs.
Prior to founding Symbl.ai, she worked in the conversational AI space, focusing on delivering value to telecom users. She is an international technology leader who advocates for women in AI and wants to inspire other women to work in data science.
Rathore, who regularly speaks nationally and is a champion for accessibility equity, describes herself as “the ultimate adventure capitalist.”
Equity Split 50/50 Between Founders
At the company’s founding, Rathore and her co-founder established a 50/50 equity split.
Today, Rathore is a fan of Notion as a key online tool to improve her work output and considers Hard Things About Hard Things and has one piece of advice for her 20-year-old self: Don’t wait to start your own company.
