INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
in late 2021 to start Lace AI, a startup that has developed AI-driven customer service software for home service companies.The path to
entrepreneurship started when Valkov was a boy, working in the family grocery store business
It taught him the power of telephone customer service
As an adult, he began to look for ways to combine his interest in AI and customer service
aimed to marry AI with customer service to help businesses generate additional revenue.The pair talked to more than 100 companies in
different industries and verticals and discovered that in the home services vertical, many sales begin with a call made to a call center
Home services include companies such as HVAC, plumbing, and roofing, among others.The premise behind Lace is that if a customer calls in to
technology to analyze all the calls coming into these businesses to detect lost revenue opportunities
Valkov declined to reveal hard revenue figures, saying only that Lace saw 1,000% annual recurring revenue (ARR) growth in 2024
(However, it only started selling to customers at the end of 2023.) The company operates a SaaS (software-as-a-service) business model,
charging a monthly fee per agent or customer support representative.Even just a 1% increase in bookings could be material for a home
services or a home remodeling company
For example, a company with $300 million in revenue experiencing a 1% increase would see its revenue increase by $3 million
Some businesses that use Lace see double-digit revenue growth, Valkov said.And today, Lace is announcing a total of $19 million in funding
since its early 2022 inception, the company tells A Technology NewsRoom exclusively
The total raised includes a previously unannounced $5 million pre-seed round led by Canvas Ventures and, more recently, a $14 million seed
raise led by Bek Ventures
It plans to triple the size of the company with its new funding.
