Cupertino startup Goodcall, creator of a cloud-based “conversational” AI assistant that mans the phones for restaurants and retailers, opened for business Wednesday with $4 million in seed funding.
The company’s seed round included investment from Neo, Foothill Ventures (an early investor in Zoom), Merus Capital, Zillow co-founder Spencer Rascott and Xoogler Ventures, among others. The funds will go toward continuing Goodcall’s free service options, hiring engineers and product development.
Goodcall was founded earlier this year by CEO Bob Summers, who in January left his job at Google as an executive in Area 120, an incubator program for experimental projects. The idea behind Goodcall is to free up business owners from easy-to-answer phone calls, without missing inquiries or potential leads from customers. According to the company, 60% of phone calls to businesses go unanswered. An agreement with Yelp makes it easier for shops to set up the service by pulling information — like hours of operation and Covid policies — from the business’s Yelp listing. The technology also has the ability to text back callers with links to an online ordering system, for example.
“For restaurants, boutiques, and local merchants to fully overcome the impacts of the pandemic, they need a solution that helps them produce, sell and serve more customers,” Summers said in a statement.
The service is free to use, runs 24/7 (including outside of operation hours), and can be set up in a few minutes. The assistant lives on a business’s local phone number published on Yelp and other social media pages. Given the technology’s basis in machine learning, Goodcall is intended to continually improves to become more efficient and effective with each phone call.
Currently service is available from six different voice options in English, but there are plans to expand into Spanish, French and Hindi service by 2022. The company offers three subscription options: free service up to 500 minutes for solo entrepreneurs and business owners on one phone line; the “Pro” level with up to five additional locations and virtual staff members for $19 per month, and the “Premium” tier with unlimited locations and staff for $49 per month.
