Espressive develops AI-driven chatbots that automate employee help-desk interactions. Its solution uses a narrowly focused NLP engine combined with image recognition to parse employee language and return a single immediate answer, and it auto-opens tickets routed to humans when needed. The system is tuned to individual customers' buzzwords and terminology and improves via machine learning over time. Customers report reductions in help-desk calls of 40–60% with around 85% employee participation, and the product understands 750 million employee phrases out of the box. The company was founded in 2016 by former ServiceNow employees and is led by CEO Pat Calhoun. Espressive currently has 65 employees and 35 customers, and the company expects those numbers to grow with the new funding. Espressive offers Barista, a virtual support agent (VSA) that brings consumer-style virtual assistants such as Alexa and Google Home into the workplace to deliver a personalized user experience. The platform is designed for enterprise service management to help employees get help and reduce burden on IT support. The company reports employee adoption of 50 to 60 percent and reductions in help-desk call volume of 30 to 50 percent. Espressive is led by CEO Pat Calhoun and is based in Santa Clara, California. The company raised $23M in funding and says it will use the proceeds to continue to expand operations. Backers on the round included General Catalyst Partners and Wing Venture Capital.

Total raised

$53M

Funding rounds

2

Latest round

Series B

Latest activity

Mar 2020