Parloa triples its valuation in 8 months to $3B with $350M raise

Berlin-based Parloa has raised $350 million in Series D funding from existing investors, valuing the six-year-old customer service AI startup at $3 billion. The round comes just eight months after the company raised $120 million at a $1 billion valuation.

General Catalyst led the new round, with participation from returning backers including EQT Ventures, Altimeter Capital, Durable Capital and Mosaic Ventures.

Parloa is one of several startups developing artificial intelligence agents that promise to automate the kind of customer service work previously handled by human representatives and help desk staff.

The company’s competitors include Sierra, co-founded by OpenAI CEO Brett Taylor, which raised $350 million at a $10 billion valuation in September; and Decagon, are reportedly in talks to raise capital at a valuation of more than $4 billion. Other companies working to replace human agents with AI include older players Intercom and Kore.ai, as well as UK-based PolyAI, which raised an $86 million round at a $750 million valuation last month.

Malte Kosub, co-founder and CEO of Parloa, doesn’t seem bothered by the competition, largely because he doesn’t think this is a “winner takes all” category. “Ultimately, it’s one of the biggest opportunities that has ever existed in software,” he told TechCrunch.

In fact, Parloa and its competitors are vying to automate a significant portion of the global customer support workforce, which Gartner estimates at 17 million contact center agents worldwide.

But it’s not just the size of the market that gives Kosopp confidence in Barloa’s ability to win. He pointed to the startup’s massive fundraising as a sign that it could be among the top leaders in the space. “There are a lot of companies out there, but you have to look at the scale and amount of funding they have received,” he said. “The number of competitors is decreasing significantly.”

Last month, Parloa said it generates more than $50 million in annual recurring revenue, but that’s not significantly ahead of Poly AI, which is expected to end 2025 with an ARR of $40 million, or Decagon, which is said to be generating “significantly more” than $30 million in ARR. However, Kosopp seems convinced that having good capital will help his startup move forward.

Parloa’s AI agents are already answering calls from large enterprise clients, which include Allianz, Booking.com, HealthEquity, SAP, Sedgwick and Swiss Life, but the CEO says the goal is to do more than just create software that “picks up the phone.”

The company will invest a significant portion of its new capital in building a “contextual, multi-model experience” that will allow personalized AI agents to learn who a customer is and their specific needs, whether they are communicating with them via an app, website or phone call.