PALO ALTO, Calif. and DENVER--Zenarate, the leading natural language AI Simulation Training solution for customer and prospect-facing agents, today announced it closed a $15M funding round led by Boston-based growth equity firm, Volition Capital. The investment follows 234% year-over-year enterprise client growth fueled by the rapid adoption of Zenarate's solution which is transforming how agents learn and perform.

Agents are often the only human connection brands have with their customers and prospects. Likewise, agent jobs are only getting tougher with automation leaving agents to solve more complex problems. With Zenarate AI Coach, customer and prospect-facing agents master the skills necessary to succeed in their role before their first live interaction.

Zenarate AI Coach is the "flight simulator" for customer service and sales agents, where agents in training are immersed in life-like conversation, screen, and chat simulations to master high-impact topics they will face with live customers and prospects.

"Simulation training is the most powerful form of learning, from pilots learning how to fly a plane to surgeons practicing before operating on live patients. With recent advancements in AI, customer service and sales leaders can now leverage the power of natural language simulation training to help their agents master the skills necessary to solve complex problems and deliver superior empathetic experiences and performance," said Brian Tuite, co-founder and CEO of Zenarate.

Zenarate uses leading NLP and NLU to provide agents a life-like simulation training experience. With Zenarate's AI Coach, newly hired and tenured agents in training role-play with their personal unbiased AI Coach, from home or office, using their own natural language without any scripting. Just like human-to-human role play, Zenarate coaches agents on tone, soft skills, and best and required practices throughout their role-play simulation. Training leaders auto-certify agents to engage with live customers and prospects through their Simulation Scorecard and Simulation Call Listening. Agents report top-decile user experience scores, citing how real their simulations feel, and how their AI Coach improves their confidence, removes their anxiety and prepares them to engage with live customers and prospects.

To date, Zenarate has delivered more than 16 million agent simulations in 15 languages to name-brand clients in financial services, insurance, healthcare, telecommunications, technology, retail, and travel industries.

Zenarate's AI-powered simulation training platform delivers immediate KPI lift as soon as new agents engage in live conversations, and tenured agents return to live conversations confident and proficient on conversation topics and skills they previously struggled with. Zenarate AI Coach delivers on average:

56% faster agent speed-to-proficiency vs. traditional training.

33% higher average CSAT (customer satisfaction) scores from agents delivering soft skills, best practices, and first-call resolution.

And 32% lower agent attrition from agents experiencing early job satisfaction and success.

"Our clients realize immediate, clear and significant KPI lift from agents who experience Zenarate natural language AI Simulation Training before engaging with their first live customer or prospect," said Tuite. "And our clients enjoy how simple their AI Coach is to onboard and deploy with no personal or account information, no IT integration to test or implement - the only IT requirements are a Chrome or Edge browser and a headset for agents to role-play with their personal unbiased AI Coach from home or office."

Zenarate has won numerous industry awards, including the Frost & Sullivan 2023 Customer Value Leadership Award in the North American Contact Center Omnichannel Agent Engagement market. "Zenarate AI Coach fills a huge gap in assessing candidate fit, new hire onboarding, training and readiness, and ongoing agent upskilling and assessment. It handles the challenge of reducing costs by automating processes, decreasing churn, and improving employee engagement with negligible IT costs," said Nancy Jamison, Senior Industry Director at Frost & Sullivan.

Diane Porter, Director of Education and Instructional Design at Sallie Mae, states: "We knew that we needed a solution that would allow training managers to scale skill development and improve new hire performance, so agents are confident and prepared when they take their first call. Zenarate AI Coach helped us achieve that goal."

Other prestigious Zenarate AI Coach awards include the Stevie 2023 Gold Award for Call Center Training Practice of the Year, Banking Tech 2023 AI & Machine Learning Award Winner, Brandon Hall Group 2022 Technology Excellence Gold Award, and the Tech Trailblazers 2022 FinTech Award Winner.

Continuing its growth and momentum, Zenarate will use the investment from Volition Capital to extend its leadership position as the natural language AI Simulation Training provider for customer service and sales agents. This capital will enable Zenarate to advance its goal of powering human connections through technology, using the most advanced natural language AI to help versus replace agents in our increasingly digital world.

"There is a significant growth opportunity to disrupt legacy passive training methods with the power of natural language simulation training," said Sean Cantwell, Managing Partner at Volition Capital. "AI-powered simulation is the new standard in customer service and sales training, and Zenarate is leading the trend. The company's success with many of the world's leading brands across diverse industries and its accomplished management team with deep experience in artificial intelligence, agent training, and performance makes this an exciting partnership for Volition Capital."

About Zenarate

Zenarate AI Coach helps leading brands develop confident top-performing agents through natural language AI Simulation Training. Zenarate's AI Coach is used worldwide every day in over a dozen countries, including the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Philippines, India, and Europe in 15 languages. Zenarate clients include leading companies in financial services, healthcare, insurance, telecommunications, technology, retail, and travel industries.

About Volition Capital

Volition Capital is a Boston-based growth equity firm that principally invests in high-growth, founder-owned companies across the software, Internet, and consumer sectors. Founded in 2010, Volition has over $1.7 billion in assets under management and has invested in and/or provided sub-advisory advice to more than 40 companies in the United States and Canada. The firm selectively partners with founders to help them achieve their fullest aspirations for their businesses.

About Zenarate