AI-powered customer service platform Cue has raised $5 million in a primary funding round that will help the company expand its technology, enter new markets and strengthen the tools businesses use to manage customer support.
The funding round was co-led by Knife Capital and FAM Investments and will be used to accelerate the development of Cue’s next generation of AI agents, while supporting international expansion and further investment in voice capabilities, security and enterprise integrations.
Founded in 2015, Cue provides businesses with a single customer service platform that combines artificial intelligence with human support. The platform already serves more than 500 companies across the United Kingdom and South Africa in industries including retail, finance, insurance, automotive and education. Over the past financial year, the company increased its annual recurring revenue by more than 160 percent and now manages more than 500 million customer messages and conversations every year.
Chief Executive Officer Richard Nischk said the company is entering an important stage of growth as more organisations look for complete AI-powered customer service solutions instead of relying on separate systems.
“We’re at an inflection point for AI in customer service,” he said, adding that businesses increasingly need “a unified platform to succeed, not a patchwork of point solutions.”
Helping Businesses Deliver Better Customer Service
Cue’s platform is designed to automate routine customer enquiries while allowing human agents to focus on more complex and sensitive cases. Its current AI agents can already resolve more than 60 percent of customer conversations without human involvement.
The company is now developing a second generation of AI agents that will be able to complete more advanced tasks across multiple business systems. These include checking order status, booking appointments, processing student applications, qualifying sales leads, updating customer records and sending payment links.
Nischk said businesses are under increasing pressure to improve efficiency while meeting rising customer expectations.
“Consumers want self-service but are increasingly frustrated by poor automated experiences,” he said. “Our goal is to help businesses deliver a genuinely great automated experience, while also recognising that escalating to a human is often the right thing to do.”
Rather than replacing people, Cue says its automation-first approach is designed to improve the work of customer service teams by reducing repetitive tasks and giving employees more time to manage conversations that require judgement, empathy and stronger customer relationships.
Funding to Support Growth and Innovation
The new investment will support three key areas of the business. Cue will expand its engineering team to develop more advanced AI agents, improve voice technology, strengthen platform security and broaden its product offering. The company will also increase sales and marketing activities across the UK and South Africa while expanding into new industries and international markets. In addition, it plans to introduce more communication channels, deeper business software integrations, additional AI capabilities and enhanced analytics.
“Our growth strategy reflects exactly what our clients are asking for: an all-in-one AI-powered customer service platform that delivers value and best-in-class service across every channel,” Nischk said.
Knife Capital believes Cue is well positioned to benefit from the growing adoption of AI across businesses. Founding Partner Keet van Zyl said customer service remains central to every successful business and that companies combining AI with human expertise will be best placed for long-term growth.
“Cue has built a platform that delivers measurable value today,” he said, noting that the company’s vision, technical expertise and ability to execute made it the type of business Knife Capital looks to support.
