SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--SightCall, the leading augmented reality (AR)-powered visual assistance platform, today announced the closing of $42 million in Series B funding led by InfraVia Capital Partners, along with co-investor Bpifrance, through its Large Venture fund. The company intends to use the funds to double its research and development efforts and increase its platform’s AI and AR capabilities.
As the world’s largest companies across verticals including insurance, healthcare, consumer goods and industrial have significantly increased the rate and investment in digital transformation, the need for comprehensive solutions that offer the capabilities of remote live-video collaboration combined with augmented reality innovation has transformed the way enterprises provide customer service.
“We created this market, we built and operate our own proprietary platform, and we partner with some of the most innovative companies around the world,” said SightCall CEO and Co-Founder Thomas Cottereau. “This investment is in perfect alignment with our objectives to scale the company and extend our lead in technology to help our customers realize lasting digital transformation within their service organizations.”
SightCall is poised for global growth and selected this particular set of investors to help them achieve the goal of scaling to $100M in annual recurring revenue. With technology integrations set up with some of the world’s leading companies, including Microsoft, SAP, Salesforce and ServiceNow, the proprietary technology platform enables remote experts to see a problem through video and deliver guidance using AR and AI technology. By blending the digital and physical worlds into a real-time collaborative environment, SightCall empowers technicians, reduces unnecessary spend and improves the customer experience.
More than 200 of the Fortune 2000 use SightCall, which has seen 100% year-over-year growth in annual recurring revenue in 2019 and 2020 and is on track to reach that mark again in 2021. SightCall has invested heavily in compliance and cybersecurity initiatives, completing SOC-2 certification and HIPAA compliance certifications along with annual security audits to meet the stringent requirements of global Fortune 2000 companies.
Rapid Digital Transformation Creates Market Opportunity for Visual Assistance Market
SightCall was founded in France in 2008 and spent the next five years building out a robust visual assistance platform before moving its headquarters to San Francisco. SightCall’s AR- and AI-powered visual assistance technology empowers technicians to be more efficient with their time, make accurate decisions that speed up resolution times, reduce costs and provide a differentiated experience for customers. SightCall is focused on growing its customer base in its core verticals and horizontally as new uses for the technology continue to scale globally.
In October 2020, following the rapid digital transformation of industries like insurance, healthcare and maintenance, Gartner, Inc. placed Augmented Reality for Customer Service as 2-5 years away from plateau on its Hype Cycle for Customer Service and Support Technologies, 2020, and with a market penetration of 5-20%.1
With a massive market opportunity, SightCall is positioned to continue leading the visual assistance market in innovation and satisfy the global demand of enterprises as they digitally transform their workforces and optimize service delivery and service experiences.
Transforming How Remote Service Works By Adding Real-Time Visual Assistance
In the service world, remote agents operate today without the ability to see the issues they are resolving, relying mostly on phone calls and text. SightCall transforms the way agents work by adding sight as a part of their service delivery tool kit. The ability to see the problem in real-time while diagnosing and resolving it has real-world business impacts such as reducing truck rolls and wasted components.
For GE Healthcare, this means real-time visual assistance to technicians working on sophisticated medical equipment. With SightCall, the company has realized massive savings by shortening maintenance turnaround times from three days to a matter of hours.
Investor Perspectives on $42M Series B Funding Round
“SightCall pioneered the market for AR-powered visual assistance, and they’re in the best position to drive the digital transformation of remote service,” said Alban Wyniecki, partner at InfraVia Capital Partners. “As a global leader, they can now expand their capabilities, making their interactions more intelligent and also bringing more automation to help humans work at their best.”
“SightCall’s $42M Series B marks the largest funding round yet in this sector, and SightCall emerges as the undisputed leader in capital, R&D resources and partnerships with leading technology companies enabling its solutions to be embedded into complex enterprise IT,” said Antoine Izsak of Bpifrance. “Businesses are looking for solutions like SightCall to enable customer-centricity at a greater scale while augmenting technicians with knowledge and expertise that unlocks efficiencies and drives continuous performance and profit.”
1 Gartner, “Hype Cycle for Customer Service and Support Technologies, 2020” Drew Krause, 5 August, 2020
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About SightCall
SightCall is a leading augmented-reality-powered video cloud platform, delivering live, remote interactions between businesses and customers on every continent around the globe. In a connected, mobile-first world, businesses leveraging SightCall have the ability to see what their customers see and guide them remotely. With nearly 15 years of experience in remote video assistance, SightCall helps businesses transform their customer service and field service with the power of augmented reality, artificial intelligence and live video. The company has offices in San Francisco (HQ), Boston, Austin, Paris, London, Frankfurt, Melbourne and Singapore. Visit sightcall.com to learn more.
About InfraVia Capital Partners
InfraVia is a leading independent private equity firm, specialized in infrastructure and technology investments. InfraVia supports entrepreneurs and industrial players in their growth and digital strategy, accelerating their transformation in sizeable platforms. Since 2008, InfraVia has raised EUR 5 billion of capital and invested in 30+ companies across 13 European countries.
About Bpifrance and Large Venture
Bpifrance's equity investments are carried out by Bpifrance Investissement. Bpifrance finances companies - at every stage of their development - in credit, collateral and equity. Bpifrance supports them in their innovation projects and internationally. Bpifrance also ensures their export activity through a wide range of products. Consulting, university, networking and acceleration programs for start-ups, SMEs and ETIs are also part of the offer proposed to entrepreneurs. Thanks to Bpifrance and its 49 regional offices, entrepreneurs benefit from a close, unique and efficient contact to help them face their challenges.
With €1.75 billion, Large Venture is Bpifrance's venture growth fund dedicated to high-potential technology companies, with the aim of fostering the emergence of French champions, future world leaders in their markets. Large Venture is active in governance and has a long-term vision. It is always in a co-investment approach with a lead or follower positioning. Large Venture participates in fundraising projects of more than €20m with a minimum initial investment of €10m. The fund has already invested in more than 55 companies since its creation in 2013.
More information on: www.Bpifrance.fr - Follow us on Twitter: @Bpifrance - @BpifrancePresse
