K1 funds Cyara

Cyara, a provider of automated customer experience assurance solutions, has secured more than $350 million in funding. The investor was K1 Investment Management. Moving forward, Peakspan will continue as a minority shareholder. Cowen acted as lead financial advisor and placement agent to Cyara on the transaction. Morgan Stanley Australia also acted as financial advisor to Cyara’s board on the transaction.

PRESS RELEASE

Cyara, a leading provider of automated customer experience (CX) assurance solutions, today announced it has received more than $350 million from K1 Investment Management (K1), a leading investment firm focused on high-growth enterprise software companies. K1’s investment and experience in business-to-business (B2B) SaaS will support Cyara’s accelerated growth, driving the expansion of the contact testing market.

Co-founded in Melbourne, Australia, in 2006 by CEO Alok Kulkarni, CTO Luan Tran and Executive Director Bonny Malik, Cyara helps its blue-chip customers build and maintain their CX systems more efficiently with automated testing and monitoring. Through its SaaS-based Automated CX Assurance Platform, Cyara has forged an early lead in the contact center testing market, estimated by Forrester to reach US $6.5 billion by 2024[1]. Over 250 leading high-profile global brands trust the Cyara CX Assurance Platform to monitor and manage the experience they provide their customers.

Alok Kulkarni, CEO of Cyara said, “Cyara was founded with a vision to improve customer experience, and we’re delighted to have found a partner in K1 that is committed to the same values and wants to accelerate our growth aspirations. Organizations can succeed or fail based on their customer experience. More companies are realizing the business-critical nature of the work we do and we’re excited to have the firepower to grow and continue to attract the best people globally. We’re at the beginning of a very exciting new chapter.”

This investment is a critical step for Cyara to build upon its global leadership in the CX assurance market. The investment will be used to accelerate product innovation, expand CX assurance into new emerging digital channels, fund strategic acquisitions of complementary technologies, and fuel geographic expansion.

Roy Liao, Principal at K1 said, “Cyara provides mission critical software and is led by a visionary management team. We look forward to supporting Alok and the management team to execute on their growth strategy and further cement their position as the category leader in automated customer experience.”

Alex Kocher, Head of Technology and Assisted Channels at National Australia Bank (NAB), said, “NAB has worked collaboratively with Cyara for over 10 years. The visibility they provide, in terms of agent voice quality and connectivity issues, means we can diagnose problems before they occur. We can get ahead of any disruption to our customer experience and really support our front-line staff, wherever the agent or banker is based.”

Peakspan will continue in its capacity as a minority shareholder. Cowen acted as lead financial advisor and placement agent to Cyara on the transaction. Morgan Stanley Australia also acted as financial advisor to Cyara’s board on the transaction.