Talkdesk raises $143 million in Series C funding to provide cloud contact center for enterprises; joins unicorn club at over $3 billion valuation

Talkdesk, a San Francisco, California-based tech startup and a provider of cloud contact center platform for companies including IBM, Acxiom, 2U, Trivago and Peloton, today announced it has raised$143 million in Series C funding  to capitalize on its current momentum and continue its global growth.

The round, which came from a combination of new and existing investors, now values the nine-year old startup at  more than $3 billion. The latest investment reflects both investor confidence in Talkdesk’s business and the strategic role that superior customer experience plays among top global brands.

New investors participating in this latest round include Franklin Templeton, Willoughby Capital, Skip Capital, Lead Edge Capital and Top Tier Capital Partners, along with existing partners Viking Global Investors and Threshold Ventures. In total, Talkdesk has raised $268 million over its funding rounds, strengthening its leadership position in the Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) marketplace and solidifying the role of customer experience as a strategic differentiator for enterprises.

Founded in 2011 by Cristina Fonseca and Tiago Paiva, Talkdesk Enterprise Contact Center Platform empowers companies to make customer experience a competitive advantage. With enterprise class performance and consumer-like ease of use, Talkdesk easily adapts to the evolving needs of sales and support teams and their end-customers, resulting in increased customer satisfaction, productivity and cost savings. Over 1,400 innovative enterprises around the world, including IBM, Acxiom and Zumiez rely on Talkdesk to power their customer interactions.

Commenting on the funding,  Jonathan Curtis, vice president, research analyst and portfolio manager with Franklin Templeton’s Franklin Equity Group, said: “We are excited to join Talkdesk in its journey to reimagine a critical element of business to consumer communications infrastructure, as businesses seek to enhance their relationships with customers with next generation digital engagement tools. Talkdesk’s market potential is large, and its business model is promising.”

This latest investment follows a year of continued global growth, product development and market leadership for Talkdesk. Over the past 12 months Talkdesk has introduced more than 600 product innovations to the market including Talkdesk 20-in-20, an ambitious release program to lead the contact center industry by starting 2020 with 20 product introductions in the first 20 weeks. The company plans to increase research and development spending and to invest in go-to-market, sales, marketing and channel development as Talkdesk continues to expand up-market.

“Talkdesk is a step above the outdated, legacy contact center systems and has quickly established itself as the vendor-of-choice. We’re excited to partner with the company as its suite of products reaches an even greater scale,” said Mitchell Green, managing partner, Lead Edge Capital. “Talkdesk is experiencing explosive adoption of its technology, and it is no surprise given the pain points its solving for companies, large and small.”