Draper Esprit Participates in $120 Million Series D in Cloud-based Phone Business Aircall

Draper Esprit, a leading venture capital firm investing in and developing high growth technology businesses, today announces that it has participated in a Series D funding round in Aircall, the cloud-based voice platform. Aircall joins Ledger as the second French unicorn in the Draper Esprit portfolio in under two weeks.

The $120 million round which values Aircall at more than $1 billion was led by Goldman Sachs Asset Management with Draper Esprit participating alongside existing investors.

Aircall will used the funds to invest in its mission of trailblazing a new era for cloud communications. The company plans to enrich its app ecosystem with new integrations across use cases, expand further globally with new European offices in London and Berlin and deeper investments in North America and APAC. It is also looking to partner with major telecommunications companies to bring its technology to a wider audience, as well as enhancing its technology with new AI capabilities and additional productivity features for call centres such as transcription and speech analytics.

Launched in 2014 in France, Aircall is a cloud-based phone system and call centre software that integrates seamlessly with popular CRM and helpdesk tools such as Salesforce, Hubspot, Zendesk, Slack and Intercom. Over the past year, remote workforces accelerated digital transformation for all companies, and, at the same time, customers increased their expectations around personalised and convenient service. Driven by these factors, Aircall has achieved record-breaking growth across the business. It saw more than 64% total customer growth year over year and now has more than 8,500 customers worldwide. With offices in New York, Paris, Sydney and Madrid, Aircall recently passed the 450-employee mark and plans to recruit more than 260 new employees by the end of the year.

Olivier Pailhes, co-founder and CEO of Aircall, said:

“Since the beginning of Aircall, we’ve helped thousands of companies to enrich their customer experience through voice channels, with more empathy than ever in the past year. We also witnessed an increasing demand for visibility and data about teams and performances. Now that hybrid, on-site or remote teams are likely here to stay, we’ll continue to work to achieve our vision, and empower every professional to have richer conversations. With that in mind, the investment by Goldman Sachs, and the renewed trust of our current investors validates this vision.”

Stuart Chapman, Director at Draper Esprit, added:

“Aircall is well placed to take full advantage of the huge structural shifts that are taking place. Not just in the way we work, with remote working and digital transformation resolutely here to stay, but in the way we interact with businesses. Customers demand a better and more personalised interaction with a business and Aircall is in a position to help companies achieve that. It is also fantastic to see another French unicorn in the Draper Esprit portfolio. As my colleague Will Turner notes, we have known for many years the potential within the French the tech ecosystem. Companies like Aircall and Ledger demonstrate the opportunity and we’re delighted to support for the long term.”