London-based OpenDialog, a conversational AI platform for insurance, healthcare, and other regulated industries, announced that it has secured $8M (nearly €7.34M) in a Series A round of funding.
The UK-based startup has now raised a total funding of $13M (nearly €11.93M).
OpenDialog’s latest investment was led by AlbionVC and supported by Dowgate Capital and various notable angel investors, directors and staff.
Ed Lascelles, Partner at AlbionVC, says, “Conversational AI has evolved massively since early chatbots. In OpenDialog, we have a team of proven entrepreneurs and technologists who have successfully built and scaled enterprise businesses before, and we’re convinced that they have the potential to be one of a handful of global leaders in this once-in-a-generation transformation.”
Capital utilisation
The funds will support OpenDialog’s goal of ensuring the safety of Generative AI in regulated sectors and enhancing operational efficiency and customer experience.
The proceeds will also help the startup to fuel further research and development of its technology, facilitate expansion into the US market, and continue the development of industry-specific solutions.
Since its seed round in 2022, OpenDialog claims to have experienced significant growth, quadrupling its headcount to over 40 employees.
An enterprise-grade conversational AI platform
Founded in 2019, OpenDialog is a conversational AI platform to design, develop and deploy smarter human-to-machine conversations.
The company enables enterprises to create customised AI chatbots and digital assistants, ensuring precise control for automation and compliance. These solutions collect millions of data points daily, fostering continuous improvement and enhancement.
Terry Walby, co-founder and CEO of OpenDialog, says, “We’re building a category-defining business that redefines the way humans interact with technology and that makes advanced and Generative AI realisable for enterprises.”
“Businesses are keen to take advantage of the technology they see manifested in applications like ChatGPT, but they’re struggling to figure out how to make that a reality in a business context without exposing themselves to risks.”
“We can offer them the security, granular control, explainability and safety which is essential for all businesses, but particularly those operating in regulated sectors like insurance, healthcare, financial services and utilities,” adds Walby.
The company’s founding team includes technology entrepreneur Terry Walby, who was the founder and CEO of Thoughtonomy, which sold to Blue Prism for $100M in 2019; Dean Chapman, previously the CCO of Thoughtonomy; and Dr Ronald Ashri, who led the research on which OpenDialog’s AI capabilities are built.
Revolutionising conversational AI development
OpenDialog claims that its context-first, multi-agent methodology revolutionises conversational AI development. Unlike even advanced large language models (LLM), it automates multi-step complex business processes through natural conversation.
With OpenDialog, creating personalised automated customer experiences can occur in just a few weeks without specialised teams, offering enterprises productivity, operational efficiency, agility, and scalability.
This approach also ensures flexibility with advanced AI models and future-proof investments in conversational AI as technology evolves.
Dr Ronald Ashri, co-founder and CPTO of OpenDialog, says, “The whole world is constrained by access to skilled resources. There are simply not enough professionals in the world in fields like healthcare, education and customer support to serve every need – and the use of technology is the only solution to that problem.”
“AI, and in particular conversational automation, will be essential to increasing the capacity and reach of services available, meeting a range of needs that would be impossible with human resources alone.”
“This is a transformation in the enterprise sector and the world of work that is every bit as significant as the founding of the internet. Those that are adopting conversational AI now are seeing their growth accelerating and will rapidly leave behind those whose tendency is to wait and see,” adds Ashri.
OpenDialog empowers enterprises to automate up to 90 per cent of customer interactions, deliver hyper-personalised experiences, ensure compliance with fine-grained controls, and scale with future-proof technology.
The company serves a diverse clientele, including notable names such as insurance giant Davies Group, Active Quote, MyMeds&Me, iDrive NYC, alongside NHS trusts in Leeds and Sussex. The Cyber Helpline also counts among the customers of OpenDialog.
