Indian American founders Niken Patel and Vinay Saini secure investment from Keith Block for their customer service platform Neuron7.ai.
Customer service AI startup Neuron7 announced Tuesday that it secured $44 million in a Series B funding round. The investment was led by the former Salesforce CEO Keith Block and his year-and-half old venture firm, Smith Point Capital.
Founded in 2020, Neuron7 helps enterprise customers resolve complex service issues with AI. Its customers include top-tier enterprises from the medical device, high-tech device, and industrial equipment industries.
“Neuron7 is redefining service with AI that delivers fast, accurate resolutions at Fortune 1000 companies. Our Smart Resolution Hub is the future of service, bringing together knowledge from data and people to power better decisions and faster resolutions at every point of the service continuum,” said CEO and Co-Founder Niken Patel.
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The AI-based customer service startup scene is not an area with little competition. Startups like Zingtree, Talla, Talkdesk, and more are all customer service-oriented AI companies. In fact, longtime tech players like Salesforce, SAP, Microsoft, and SeviceNow have customer service on their AI products’ agendas.
Neuron7 made its competition disappear by partnering with the above-mentioned firms. ServiceNow’s corporate venture capital arm is also an investor, TechCrunch reported.
The total valuation for Neuron7 reached five times over its last round when it raised $10 million Series A in 2022, making it over $63 million to date.
The new funding will be used towards Neuron7’s product innovation and enterprise-focused go-to-market growth initiatives, according to the press release.
“Neuron7 represents the next great leap forward for the service industry,” said Block, according to the press release.
Block, who previously had experience running sales at Oracle, left Salesforce in early 2020 and returned in 2023 as the founder of a $400 million venture capital fund, Smith Point Capital, along with co-founders Burke Norton and Chris Lytle.
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“We’ve had a front-row seat to the industry’s evolution over the last few decades and were immediately drawn to Niken’s vision to establish a service-focused, AI-driven intelligence layer. Neuron7 delivers industry-leading, domain-specific results to an impressive roster of customers and establishes impressive strategic partnerships with major cloud platforms – milestones rarely seen in a company at this stage. We are excited to partner with Neuron7 on its next chapter of growth.”
Block is not just a lead investor at Neuron7 but also a board member, TechCrunch reported. “We’re very selective,” Block added. “We work with 10 to 12 companies, and it’s Series B and C growth equity.”
Patel carries over 20 years of entrepreneurial and leadership experience in handling high-growth technology ventures. Before establishing Neuron7, Patel was a private investor and prior to that, spent a large portion of his career with AST LLC, an award-winning Oracle Systems integrator.
Co-founder and Head of Customer and Product Delivery Vinay Saini is an IIT Delhi alum who worked with AST LLC as their CFO and COO before joining forces with Patel to set up Neuron7.