Zendesk, a provider of customer experience (CX), launched its global venture funds for companies that are focusing on artificial intelligence (AI), on Monday. Zendesk Ventures is a fund that provides capital, CX and AI knowledge, and strategic partnerships to emerging companies.
Zendesk announced that it has made new investments in PolyAI, a conversation AI company, and unitQ, a customer feedback platform. Zendesk Ventures already includes conversational Intelligence Platform Observe.AI and Field Service Management Software Provider Zuper.
The AI startup ecosystem in India is booming thanks to the Make AI in India initiative of the Union Government. AI startups in India are a great investment because of their unique value propositions and growth potential, according to Vasudeva Munnaluri.
Zendesk Ventures aims to bring together the best technology, people, and network in order to empower AI-first startup companies in India that are focused solving meaningful business issues in the CX or EX space. Munnaluri added that we are excited about the future of AI startups in India and the role Zendesk will play in their development.
Many tech giants have announced funding for startups in AI due to the growing opportunities in the field. SAP announced that Sapphire Ventures, its venture capital arm, will invest $1 billion in AI enterprise startup companies by 2023. Salesforce Ventures, a venture capital arm of cloud-based software company Salesforce Inc. doubled its Generative AI Fund from $500 million to $1 billion to support the AI startup eco-system and accelerate the development generative AI. Microsoft, Google, Nvidia, and other big tech companies are investing heavily in startups developing generative AI.
Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, which studies AI trends found that global AI investment fell for the second consecutive year in 2023. The funding for generative AI increased sharply, attracting $25.2 Billion, nearly nine-times the investment in 2022 and around 30 times that of 2019.