Bucharest-based Druid, an end-to-end platform for building AI-driven conversational business applications, has raised USD 15 million in a Series A round.

The funding will be used to fuel the company's international expansion, by actively hiring new talents, to support its accelerated growth across Europe and North America.

Druid plans to open new offices in France and Germany by the end of 2022 and consolidate its existing presence in the U.K. and U.S. Furthermore, the company intends to make recruitment a strategic priority this year and boost its worldwide team by 60%.

The current financing round was led by Karma Ventures and Hoxton Ventures, joined by GapMinder, who consolidated its position from the previous round, and four other investors from Germany, Switzerland, Poland, and Romania.

The company reached a 3.8x Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) growth rate at the end of December 2021 compared to 2020 and already achieved a 2.8x growth at the end of Q1 2022 compared to the same period last year, it said. 

Starting with 2019, Druid gave voice to RPA robots, adding conversational skills to the world's first hyper-automation platform through its global alliance with UiPath, the market leader in the robotic business process automation. Strategic connections and a global network of more than 130 partners enable the rapid application of Druid technology in any country. Druid's objective is to meet the benchmark of 1,000 customers serviced globally by 2024.

"The fresh round of funding will be used to strengthen our global reach and ambitious international goals. Following our vision to deliver a virtual assistant for every employee, Druid is a global leader in AI-driven conversational business applications that assist organizations in delivering their digital transformation agendas. Leveraging our market-validated platform, our goal is to empower businesses worldwide in using DRUID solutions to secure customer loyalty and boost employee retention for businesses of all sizes. We are going beyond the present typical constraints of conversational solutions to create a new category of products, Conversational Business Applications (CBA), that will enable A.I. to successfully drive complex processes and help people achieve better business results," said Liviu Drăgan (pictured center), CEO of Druid.

"Druid is our first investment in Romania. UiPath has let the whole world know about the great potential of the Romanian tech ecosystem, and we are glad that we have an opportunity to work with Liviu Dragan and his team on another fast-growing software company," said Kristjan Laannemaa, Founding Partner, Karma V.C.

"At Hoxton, we back businesses from Europe that can scale globally. We're excited by Druid's growth in the U.S. and are confident that with this new funding, it will grow into the category leader for Conversational Business Applications," said Hussein Kanji, partner at Hoxton Ventures.

"Druid has grown extremely fast since its launch due to its innovative AI-driven conversational chatbot platform, the talent of the team to expand fast internationally and build an ecosystem, and its transformation towards a conversational business applications platform. GapMinder's follow-on participation in this funding round reaffirms our confidence in Druid's team and its vision to provide each employee with an intelligent virtual assistant. We will continue to stand for DRUID and support the company's plans for international expansion and consolidation," added Dan Mihăescu, Founding Partner GapMinder BV.

Druid's AI-driven conversational business applications allow businesses to enhance the user experience for both customers and employees. The company provides enterprises with "unique conversational capabilities and enables intuitive, natural, and frictionless digital interactions."

Last year, Druid was the winner of the Growth Star award in the Deloitte 2021 C.E. Technology Fast 50 ranking, having the fastest natural growth rate of 6,753% in the 2018-2020 period. Also, Druid was named a "Hot Vendor in Conversational A.I." in the 2021 Aragon Research report, a Conversational A.I. Innovator according to IDC, and a Major Contender in the Conversational A.I. market according to Everest Group.

(Photo courtesy of the company)

simona@romania-insider.com