Berlin-based AI company increases valuation to three billion dollars

Berlin, Düsseldorf. The Berlin-based AI company Parloa can push ahead with its international expansion with fresh money. The specialist for customer interactions is receiving 350 million dollars from investors, as was announced on Thursday. "This financing is a decisive moment for Parloa," said company CEO and co-founder Malte Kosub.

At the same time, the new financing round triples the young company's valuation to three billion dollars within just eight months. Handelsblatt had already reported on this last week. Only the Freiburg-based AI company Black Forest Labs is worth more.

Parloa intends to use the funds it has now raised primarily to expand its international footprint. The Berlin-based company has been active in the USA since 2023. The US headquarters in New York will now be followed by an office in San Francisco. Parloa also wants to expand in Europe, including in Spain.

Speed is particularly important in the highly competitive market for AI agents, in which more and more specialists are emerging alongside generalists such as Parloa. It is important to occupy the market quickly.

"The market for AI agents will explode in the short term, but will shrink significantly in the long term," says Holger Hürtgen, Partner at management consultancy McKinsey. Many providers will disappear in the future because large platforms will quickly integrate and standardise their functions. What will remain are a few dominant providers and a few specialists.

Helsing investor General Catalyst leads the round

Parloa's financing round is being led by the international investor General Catalyst, which also holds stakes in the German AI defence company Helsing and the AI start-ups Langdock and Black Forest Labs. The head of General Catalyst, Hemant Taneja, justified the new investment by stating that Parloa is "a clear market leader in this rapidly developing segment". Just like General Catalyst partner Jeannette zu Fürstenberg, who has since been promoted to President, Taneja is joining the Supervisory Board.

Just last May, Parloa became a unicorn, i.e. a company valued by investors at more than one billion dollars. In total, the company has raised more than half a billion dollars in venture capital since it was founded in 2017 - well before ChatGPT.