Zendesk creates global VC fund for investing in AI-first ventures

Customer experience (CX) solutions provider Zendesk launched its global venture fund for artificial intelligence (AI)-first companies, on Monday. Called Zendesk Ventures, the fund aims at providing capital, CX and AI expertise, and strategic partnership opportunities to emerging companies. 

With the launch, Zendesk has announced new investments in conversation AI company PolyAI and customer feedback platform unitQ. The Zendesk Ventures portfolio already includes conversational intelligence platform Observe.AI, and field service management software provider, Zuper. 

“With the Make AI in India initiative by the Union government, the AI startup ecosystem is booming in India. Unique value propositions and immense growth potential make AI startups a great investment in India," said Vasudeva Rao Munnaluri, RVP India & SAARC, Zendesk.

Zendesk Ventures is focused on bringing the best technology, products, people and network together, to empower AI-first startups in the country that are focused on solving meaningful business problems in the CX and EX space, Munnaluri said adding that we are excited for what the future holds for AI startups in India - and the place Zendesk can play in their development.

Given the growing opportunity in AI, many tech majors have announced funds for emerging startups in the field. For instance, SAP, through its venture capital firm Sapphire Ventures announced in July 2023 that it will invest over $1 billion in AI enterprise startups. Before that, Salesforce Ventures, the venture capital arm of cloud software company Salesforce Inc., doubled its Generative AI Fund to $500 million to support the AI startup ecosystem and accelerate the development of generative AI. Other venture capital firms and big tech companies such as Microsoft, Google, and Nvidia are investing heavily in startups that are developing generative AI. 

To be sure, Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI), which studies AI trends, found that global investment in AI fell for the second year in a row in 2023. However, funding for generative AI sharply increased attracting $25.2 billion funding, nearly nine times the investment of 2022 and about 30 times the amount from 2019.