Founded in Paris in 2017 by Franz Fodéré, Zaion is pleased to announce a €9 million Series A funding round from Fortino Capital, Truffle Capital, Pro BTP Innovation and Bpifrance. La France Mutualiste, a reference investor for Zaion, is also participating in the deal.
Zaion is helping companies improve their customer experience through Artificial Intelligence. Its solutions aim to: • improve the customer experience by placing voice at the heart of an engaging, interactive, and effective relationship • speed up the digitization of customer processes by automating the processing of simple, repetitive, and high-volume conversations • enhance human capital by assigning higher value-added calls to advisors • reduce operational costs Its consistent development has enabled it to become the leading player in the French Callbot solutions market with: • more than 1 million inbound calls handled per month • 100 Callbots in production in 5 languages and across 3 countries • 50 key accounts in various sectors such as insurance, assistance, healthcare, banking, real estate, public services, automotive, transportation, and telecoms.
Further development of AI solutions and acceleration in Europe Having already established a presence in Germany and Belgium, this new round of funding aims to step up Zaion's internationalization in Europe while consolidating its leading position in France.
Through its R&D center aptly called the Zaion Lab, Zaion will continue to develop its Artificial Intelligence technologies through: • Voice AI (speech recognition) • Conversational AI (Natural Language Processing) • Paralinguistic AI (gender, age, tone, and emotion detection) The company has 80 employees and is planning to double its workforce by the end of next year.
Franz Fodéré, founder and CEO of Zaion: "After a recurrent revenue growth of more than 200% in 2020, we want to reach a new milestone and make Zaion the undisputed leader in conversational Artificial Intelligence in Europe. Voice is the most natural channel to engage with a company or public administration. Based on this premise, our ambition is to create the customer relationship of the future through AI based on a seamless, engaging, meaningful and effective customer experience. For this new stage I am delighted to bring on board investors with a culture specific to Northern Europe and capable of supporting us in long-term international development."
Filip Van Innis, Investment Director at Fortino Capital: "Zaion addresses the global conversational AI market that will reach €102 billion by 2026. We believe that with its proven customer relationship experience and AI technology expertise, Zaion will transform the customer experience and significantly improve user satisfaction."
Bernard-Louis Roques, CEO & Co-founder of Truffle Capital: "The combination of highly specialized skills in automated language processing technologies (like understanding, modeling, semantic and sentiment analysis, and retrieval) as well as an in-depth knowledge of how call centers work make Zaion the most innovative player in its market. The company's automated language solution is a real success with insurance companies, a field where it is already a leader. The management and the team bring together exceptional talents and know-how. Through our Truffle ecosystem, we intend to contribute to Zaion's expansion in France and Europe."
