Contact centre technology provider Ameyo raises $5M from Forum Synergies

Gurgaon-based Drishti-soft Solutions Pvt Ltd, a contact centre technology provider under the banner of Ameyo, has raised around Rs 32 crore ($5 million) in Series A round of funding from private equity fund manager Forum Synergies and other investors.

Ameyo will deploy the capital to expand into the US market and for platform-related investments in building independent service vendor (ISV) relations.

The money will also be used to expand the company's newer offerings, namely TexoCC (Ameyo's cloud contact centre product) and Texo SEH (a sales acceleration suite).

"The transformation of contact centres, their increasing criticality to business and the exploding cloud opportunity position Ameyo for explosive global growth. The complementary skill sets of the founder team...give Drishti an edge in creating value for our investors," said Samir Inamdar, co-founder MD and CEO of Forum Synergies.

Forum Synergies has made the investment through India Knowledge-Manufacturing Fund – I (IKMF-I), which puts money in unlisted Indian small and medium size enterprises. As part of the transaction, Inamdar will join the board of Drishti.

"Contact centres are undergoing rapid transformation both in terms of impact to the core business and movement to cloud. Telesales and inside sales teams are adapting sales acceleration technology, which is a new $12 billion opportunity and growing very fast. This fresh funding would catalyse our larger participation in both of these market opportunities," said Bishal Kumar, CEO of Drishti-soft.

Ameyo was founded by Kumar, Sachin Bhatia and Nayan Jain (classmates from IIT Guwahati), in 2003. Kumar is also a member of NASSCOM Product Council and the founding member of Indian Software Product Industry Round Table (iSPIRT).  Previously, Kumar worked with Hughes Software Systems.

The 300-employee strong Ameyo provides services to 1,500 customers in over 40 countries. Its client list includes names such as Ola, Jabong, Bankbazaar, Tiny Owl, Mphasis and WNS.  Recently, Savaari Car Rentals chose Ameyo's  'Customer Engagement Hub' to streamline customer and driver interactions.

On the contact centre infrastructure side, Ameyo's products would compete with Genesys, Five9, inContact and others. InsideSales.com, RingDNA and Velocify are the company's competitors on the sales acceleration side.

Bangalore-based SME-focused PE firm Forum Synergies, which raised $50 million in its maiden fund IKMF–I in 2013, had recently invested in Coimbatore-based electric bike company Ampere Vehicles Pvt Ltd. This round of funding was led by Tata Sons' chairman emeritus Ratan Tata.