ReadyMode, which provides call centre software, has secured $4 million CAD in venture debt to scale its cloud-based platform and keep up with the changing demands of the call centre industry.
The funding comes from Scotiabank’s Technology and Innovation Banking arm as ReadyMode sees an opportunity to take advantage of changes in the contact centre software market, driven, in part, by increasing adoption of virtual and cloud-based solutions throughout COVID-19.
“The overwhelming adoption and success of our industry leading software has significantly accelerated our growth.”
– Jason Jantz, CEO and founder of ReadyMode
The $4 million marks ReadyMode’s first round of funding since the startup was founded in 2014.
ReadyMode, formerly known as XenCall, has developed a predictive dialer that connects call center agents with leads. The startup claims its solution allows agents to connect with more customers in less time than on average and touts its offering as the fastest predictive dialer in the industry. ReadyMode reports more than 1,800 active customers with 11,000 individuals using its platform and more than 10 billion annual calls made.
“The overwhelming adoption and success of our industry leading software has significantly accelerated our growth and has brought us to an inflection point where we’re rapidly scaling the business,” says ReadyMode CEO and founder Jason Jantz. “We’re going to leverage this new funding to assemble a diverse and highly skilled team that will be critical to ensuring we continue developing innovative, best-in-class solutions that revolutionize how organizations start sales conversations.”
ReadyMode’s funding from Scotiabank comes as interest in the call centre software industry has appeared to heat up. In recent weeks, France-born cloud-based call centre software company Aircall surpassed a $1 billion valuation following a Series D round led by Goldman Sachs Asset Management.
Reports list the global contact center software market as a $24.1 billion USD industry, as of 2020. It is expected to reach $75.5 billion, globally, by 2026. Some of the factors driving this growth include the rising adoption of call centre technologies, increasing adoption of virtual and cloud-based contact center solutions amid COVID-19, and a rising demand for “personalized and streamlined customer interactions to achieve high customer satisfaction.”
CEO Jantz emphasized the changes being seen in the industry. “Simply put, the needs of business communication have evolved and [changing our name to] ‘ReadyMode’ represents our way of evolving with it,” he said.
Like many businesses, ReadyMode initially saw the negative impacts of COVID-19 at the onset of the pandemic, with significant customer churn. However, by mid-April 2020, ReadyMode reports having seen “a big shift in deal flow.”
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“Many large opportunities that were still on-premise and had not yet adopted cloud were racing to do so – our customers needed to adapt to working remotely, which is something we specialize in,” Jantz said.
Over the past year, ReadyMode has seen accelerated adoption of its technology, with deals closing in around 30 days instead of the nine to 12 months they had been slated for. Jantz claims ReadyMode has now reached almost double the company’s pre-COVID revenue, though did not disclose exact numbers.
ReadyMode plans to use its capital from Scotiabank to increase its headcount to more than 100 employees by bringing on an additional 40 by the end of this year. The startup also told BetaKit of plans to develop and launch new products and features “in the near future.”
Photo by Sarah Pflug from Burst