Talkdesk Raises $100 Million for R&D, Global Expansion

CCaaS provider Talkdesk has obtained $100 million in Series B funding led by Viking Global Investors to accelerate enterprise platform innovation and global expansion.

Talkdesk said this is the largest funding round ever raised for a private company in the contact-center industry. Since launching its Enterprise Contact Center Platform, the company has gained large enterprise customers such as The Scotts Co., Discovery Education and Avetta.

Talkdesk’s Jon Heaps

Jon Heaps, Talkdesk‘s vice president of channels, tells Channel Partners this “history-making funding” gives the Talkdesk channel the “incredible opportunity to double down with partners, and expand globally.”

“Our channel can expect us to dig deeper and widen our reach into new markets, with more partners, to connect with even more customers,” he said. “This funding gives us the advantage to expand our partner investments with the expectation of growing and developing our channel.”

Talkdesk said it will double down on research and development in key technology areas, such as intelligent context-sensitive routing of voice and digital interactions, analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI). Talkdesk also will expand its AppConnect Innovation Ecosystem, which allows companies to add new capabilities as their business and technology needs change.

The company has offices in the United States, the United Kingdom and Portugal, and said it will continue to aggressively grow its global operations, marketing and sales organizations.

“The success and expansion of the Talkdesk channel is of the utmost importance and focus for the overall Talkdesk strategy, ” Heaps said. “This funding will continue to support these efforts and will be a huge benefit to our global partner community.”

“Today’s digital-first customers expect immediate and personalized answers, yet the majority of companies have not yet adopted a flexible, cloud-native platform to enable this level of agility and service,” said Josh Stein, a partner at DFJ. “We are pleased to continue investing in Talkdesk, which has grown into an enterprise company that is leading the transformation of the $40 billion-plus contact center market. We believe that 2019 will be the year that cloud-based contact centers become the rule, not the exception, and Talkdesk will lead the way.”