Agara raises $4.3mn in funding from UTEC, others

In less than four years, Agara has six patents filed in the US under its belt and supports enterprises like Procter Gamble.The funding will be used to accelerate product development and make a number of strategic hires in Agaras technology department as well as growing the sales and marketing team in North America, the statement said.Headquartered in New York, Agara plans to double its team of ML research executives and data scientists in 2021.

Agara, the startup building the next generation of virtual voice agents for enterprises, on Wednesday said it has raised USD 4.3 million (about Rs 31.3 crore) in funding led by Japan-based early stage deep-tech venture capital firm UTEC.

The pre-series A extension round also saw participation from existing investors, Blume Ventures and RTP Global, a statement said.

This brings the total funds raised by Agara to USD 7.5 million, it added.

Founded by Abhimanyu and Arjun Maheswaran in 2017, Agara develops virtual voice agents that leverage proprietary machine learning models to understand speech intentions, make intelligent decisions to handle queries and talk individual customers through to a resolution. In less than four years, Agara has six patents (filed in the US) under its belt and supports enterprises like Procter & Gamble.

''The funding will be used to accelerate product development and make a number of strategic hires in Agara's technology department as well as growing the sales and marketing team in North America,'' the statement said.

Headquartered in New York, Agara plans to double its team of ML research executives and data scientists in 2021. The company also plans to establish its first pure AI research team at Bengaluru in 2021, it added.

''With the new COVID norms, we expect the demand for virtual voice agents rises manifold. Last year, we processed over a million calls and a million emails in 12 countries across every continent in 4 languages. With the new surge in demand, we are confident of increasing this number to over 5 million calls,'' Agara co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Abhimanyu said.