Last year, San Francisco early stage startup Pylon raised $3.2 million in new seed funding to develop and bring to market a product that helps companies track, manage and route B2B customer conversations in channels like Slack, Microsoft Teams and Discord.
But what the company learned was that this approach wasn't enough for the B2B market. Over the past year, the company has expanded its mission to include features like ticketing, chatbots and traditional channels like email, and has begun building a customer communications services platform.
Customers seem to be embracing this approach, as the company announced a $17 million Series A on Wednesday.
Pylon CEO and co-founder Marty Kausas says the omnichannel approach the company initially adopted was just a first step, and the company quickly realized customers were clamoring for more.
“When we last spoke, we were just starting to emerge as a support tool, so we were primarily seeing businesses starting to talk to their customers. [business] “Instead of email, we communicate with customers through shared Slack channels or Microsoft Teams,” Kausas told TechCrunch.
“But then we realized it wasn't just omnichannel that was the problem. There was actually a much bigger opportunity to integrate everything B2B teams needed, and omnichannel monitoring was just a small part of it.”
For a while, businesses have tended to buy the best SaaS available, but over time, this has become a headache for IT management. Companies are increasingly looking for a single vendor that can handle everything.
“But what we found is that most of these companies were buying ticketing systems like Zendesk, they were buying customer success platforms like Gainsight. They're buying AI support bots. They're buying separate knowledge base products, and it turns out they should all be part of one tool,” he says.
Kausas said his team has worked hard to add these features, and while he acknowledged that the initial effort probably can't compete with products that have been on the market for years, he said it's helping them win over customers who don't want to be bothered with maintaining these tools. The company plans to continue improving its offerings, he said.
The approach seems to be working: Pylon now has about 250 customers, up from just a handful last year. The company has grown its employee base from five last year to 14 now, and it's hiring to fill open positions.
He says what sets him apart from many startups today is that he offers his employees a full office-based experience. He rented space in San Francisco (next to TechCrunch's former office, in fact) with room to grow to 100 employees. He requires employees to work in the office, and at least so far, he says candidates are attracted to working in an office again. “One thing I'll say is, I think a lot of companies are trying to do remote work these days. What makes us unique is that we're fully in-person,” he said.
The $17 million investment was led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from existing investors General Catalyst, Y Combinator, and an unnamed angel investor. The company has raised more than $20 million to date.