Plano's AmplifAI Closes $18.5M in Series A Funding to Boost Its People Enablement Platform

Plano-based AmplifAI, an artificial intelligence startup dedicated to improving employee satisfaction, has closed on an $18.5 million round of Series A funding led by Greycroft, a seed-to-growth venture capital firm located in New York and Los Angeles.

The capital is comprised of $12.5 million in equity funding and $6 million in venture debt from Comerica Bank. It will be used to further secure AmplifAI’s status as a leading employee enablement platform for employee-centric enterprises—a category that the team says it created.

Additional participation in the round came from LiveOak Venture Partners, Dallas Venture Partners, and Capital Factory. In 2019, we told you about the three firms leading a $3.9 million round of the Series A. At the time, that funding was used to accelerate market growth, build sales and distribution, and add field services, retail, and healthcare products to go accompany its current telecom and technology verticals.

‘Shaping the future of work’

AmplifAI, founded in 2014 by CEO Sean Minter, combines artificial intelligence with with its call center customers’ existing data to drive employee satisfaction and results. With AmplifAI, the days of hiring and training employees with the hope they’ll one day become top earners are gone.

“The contact center remains a huge untapped opportunity for companies globally. Reps are on the front line with customers, and most are missing opportunities to grow customer value because of inadequate training,” Will Szczerbiak, a partner at Greycroft, said in a statement. “By integrating underlying contact center systems and creating training pathways for all reps to perform like the top 10, AmplifAI delivers tremendous value to clients in the form of higher customer satisfaction, increased revenue, competitive differentiation, and more.”

The tech transforms data into actionable insights and performance-relevant actions, essentially enabling workforces to become a well-rounded group of high performers. It’s designed specifically for companies that are focused on their people, and wish to develop them as employees.

By allowing for rapid feedback from managers to their subordinates, morale and task success improves. As a self-learning platform, AmplifAI monitors data and “learns” successful employees’ skills and behaviors—creating what the company defines as personalized development actions that can elevate everyone.

Up until 2019, Minter had quietly built what is on its way to becoming one of the most impactful AI technology companies in the country. With a background as the successful founder of three other tech startups, Minter had seen firsthand personnel problems that he’s solving today.

He thinks of each new startup as “an exercise in persistence and iteration as long as you have a problem that needs to be solved,” and considers the future to be a place of unlimited possibilities and challenges that can only be solved by individuals thinking beyond their limits.

“All innovation solves a problem,” Minter previously told Dallas Innovates. “Creativity allows the innovator to look at the problem in a way that others have not, and develop a solution that generates value for both the customer and the innovator.”

A hybrid workforce

Fast forward to today’s pandemic-fueled state of the workplace and you’ll notice AmplifAI has shifted with the tide.

The startup says its platform is “the most comprehensive and innovative employee enablement platform for hybrid enterprises,” as it aims to help now dispersed teams in accelerating business outcomes, productivity, and engagement. It also wants to “make work more fun”—and that means assisting “wherever work is happening.”

Minter hopes to continue defining the AI-powered people enablement category, while prioritizing product improvements to maintain industry leadership. “This investment aligns with our objectives to enable every organization to better use data to maximize employee and organizational performance,” he said.

Throughout the last 12 months, Minter and his team have grown their paid user base 10-times, expanded to 16 different countries, and continued working with large clients like The Home Depot.

“AmplifAI has proven its capabilities, starting with a small pilot over two years ago to an enterprise-wide intelligent engagement and performance management platform for all of THD contact centers—both internal and outsourced,” Dante Brooks, senior manager of Customer Experience at The Home Depot, said in a news release. “AmplifAI is very flexible and easy to do business with—a partner that is built to engage, develop and delight our frontline employees.”