Former Siteminder duo raise $3.85 million for AI-based customer Q&A platform

A Sydney-based online customer support platform using AI to answer questions has raised $3.85 million.

The raise for Brainfish was led by Peak XV (the renamed Sequoia Capital India), with support from Macdoch Ventures, Black Sheep Capital, MadPaws CEO Justus Hammer and US and Australian angel investors.

It’s the second round for the business in the 12 months since its launch, with $5 million in total now banked. Brainfish has earmarked the capital for product innovation and further international expansion. The platform currently operates in Australia, the US and Singapore.

Cofounded by former SiteMinder product builders Daniel Kimber and Ajain Vivek Thankaswamy, Brainfish allows businesses to answer and resolve customer queries.

Kimber, the CEO, whose CV also includes digital twin startup Willow and hospitality ordering app me&u, said they’d had a 65% month-on-month growth trajectory since its entry to market last April and already services more than 300,000 users globally. ASX-listed Mad Paws and Airtasker are among the customers.

“Customer support hasn’t changed in decades, and whilst tooling is better, people today want quick answers that are accurate and contextualised,” he said.

“We’re able to continue pushing the boundaries of customer support and save businesses countless hours by delivering a superior product that works from the very top of the customer funnel. Bad bot answers just won’t suffice anymore.”

Brainfish has joined a market dominated by some of the biggest names in tech when it comes to bot-based customer support, including market leader Salesforce, OpenAI-powered Zoho Desk, Danish-US CRM Zendesk and fellow Sydney startup Optech, which also launched last year with a focus on AI-based customer support for fintech, health and delivery services.

‍Kimber said their use of artificial intelligence  combines a company’s knowledge with contextual understanding of the customer so they solve their own problems.

‍”The market has responded incredibly well to our product in its first year, and we’re firmly focused on growth to continue redefining the customer support landscape.”