AI customer support startup Lorikeet has now raised $75 million in just 10 months

A Sydney artificial intelligence platform for customer support has become one of the world’s hottest startups after raising US$35 million (A$54m) in a Series A – its third raise in less than 12 months.

The round for Lorikeet (the garrulous Australian parrot) was led by US fintech VC QED Investors, with support from existing backers Blackbird, Square Peg, and Skip Capital, as well as Capital49, Operator Partners, Airtree, and Athletic Ventures.

With Airtree joining the party, it’s the first startup since Canva to have Australia’s “big three” VC firms chipping in. Canva’s husband-and-wife cofounders Melanie Perkins and Cliff Obrecht also joined the Series A. Several ex Stripers are also angel investors in the platform, which uses AI agents to deal with intricate customer problems.

The fresh bucks are for R&D and global go-to-market efforts in the next five months. The business already has customers in US, Europe, and Australia.

Lorikeet was founded in mid-2023 (originally as Optech) by US-based former Stripe executive Steve Hind and former Google AI senior engineer Jamie Hall. It launched last October, raising a $7.3 million Seed round, then four months later in February this year, banked another A$14m (US$9m) in a round led by Blackbird.

The startup has now raised more than $75 million and now as a valuation topping $200 million.

If you’ve dealt with a chatbot at Airwallex, Linktree, Flex or Eucalyptus, you’ve probably engaged with a Lorikeet AI agent – the startup calls the “concierges”, which as well as answering questions, can make judgment calls and take action to solve problems across chat, email, and voice.

Hind, the CEO, said that’s what sets Lorikeet apart from its competitors.

“Even if they’re wrapped up in ‘AI agent’ buzzwords, chatbots that recite self-serve FAQ steps are fundamentally unable to solve the types of issues customers have in the real world,” he said. “Customers don’t want to be told how to fix their problems. They want a concierge that actually solves them.”

One of Lorikeet’s first deployments was end-to-end handling of lost, stolen, and missing debit cards—with the AI used to determine eligibility, updatethe customer’s address, and send a replacement card without human intervention.

“While others were picking the low-hanging fruit, we built a ladder,” Hind said.

“We decided from the start that we didn’t want to focus on FAQ summaries. We focused on working with companies in highly regulated sectors like financial services, healthcare, and energy in order to challenge ourselves to build a system able to take high-consequence actions in the toughest environments.”

QED Investors principal Victoria Zuo said “Lorikeet has cracked the code on AI that actually resolves issues end to end. Their approach to safe, controlled automation in financial services and other complex industries is exactly what the market needs.”