AKRON, Ohio--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Drips, the founders of Conversational Texting®, today announced it has secured a significant investment from Accel-KKR to fuel the next era of growth of its first-to-market conversational AI platform. With the major shift toward digital connectivity and communications, especially in 2020, enterprises are now integrating SMS into their marketing mix, and many of them are working with Drips to automate engagement with customers and prospects using SMS.
Drips’ focus on empowering brands to capture intent and drive meaningful conversations has sparked rapid growth since the company was founded in 2016. “This year, Drips will reach nearly three times our 2019 revenues – and our strong financial performance is what made this investment possible. With Accel-KKR as our partner, we are positioned to catapult into our next phase of growth and product innovation,” said Aaron Christopher (A.C.) Evans, Drips’ CEO.
“The SMS channel as a vital customer engagement tool is gaining unprecedented adoption. What sets Drips apart in the market is its ability to manage automated, two-way, humanized conversations at scale,” said Greg Williams, Managing Director at Accel-KKR. “A.C. and the entire Drips team have built impressive momentum and we are thrilled to be a part of their next chapter of growth.”
The Drips platform is backed by a proprietary natural language processing model that echoes real-life conversations, putting the consumer in control of every interaction to drive engagement. Drips’ clients consistently see higher ROIs through increased response rates using its platform than traditional channels such as email, outbound phone calls and push notifications due to its conversational asynchronous nature.
“To date, the Drips platform has handled over half a billion humanized conversations, enabling us to deliver cognitive automation at a scale that no other competitor in the messaging industry has been able to match,” said Evans. “Our team of Conversational Texting® experts act as an extension of our clients, allowing us to onboard efficiently and scale with them quickly. This investment will help us continue to expand that team of experts, extract even more value from our data, and continue the innovation of the Drips platform.”
About Drips
The Drips AI-powered platform enables brands to engage with their audiences through Conversational Texting® and scheduled calling. Backed by a proprietary natural language processing model, Drips leverages human-like messaging to break through the noise, capture intent and drive meaningful outcomes. With more than half a billion conversations handled to-date, our AI is constantly improving. More than 3.5 billion touch points have gone through the Drips platform. The platform offers an open API allowing clients to integrate with any CRM, marketing automation system, dialer or call center platform. Drips was advised by K&L Gates LLP, led by corporate partner Goody Agahi. Learn more at www.drips.com or connect via LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram or the Drips blog.
About Accel-KKR
Accel-KKR is a technology-focused investment firm with over $10 billion in capital commitments. The firm focuses on software and tech-enabled businesses, well-positioned for topline and bottom-line growth. At the core of Accel-KKR’s investment strategy is a commitment to developing strong partnerships with the management teams of its portfolio companies and a focus on building value alongside management by leveraging the significant resources available through the Accel-KKR network. Accel-KKR focuses on middle-market companies and provides a broad range of capital solutions including buyout capital, minority-growth investments, and credit alternatives. Accel-KKR also invests across a wide range of transaction types including private company recapitalizations, divisional carveouts and going-private transactions. In 2019 and 2020, Inc. named Accel-KKR to “PE 50 – The Best Private Equity Firms for Entrepreneurs”, its annual list of founder-friendly private equity firms. Accel-KKR is headquartered in Menlo Park with offices in Atlanta and London. For more information, visit accel-kkr.com.
