Pylon, a company aiming to be the first AI-powered operating system for B2B support, announced today that it has raised $31 million in Series B funding. The round was co-led by a16z and Bain Capital Ventures (BCV), with additional participation from existing investors, including General Catalyst and Y Combinator. This new funding brings Pylon’s total capital raised to $51 million.
The company stated that the investment marks a pivotal moment in its mission to redefine B2B support, which it sees as fundamentally different from traditional, transaction-based B2C customer service.
Pylon was founded in November 2022 after identifying a gap in the market: B2B companies were increasingly providing support through modern channels like Slack, Teams, and Discord, but lacked the proper tools to manage these interactions. The company’s initial product was a simple Slack-to-Zendesk integration, which quickly gained traction and led to its participation in Y Combinator’s W23 batch.
Since then, Pylon’s vision has expanded to build a comprehensive platform purpose-built for the unique needs of B2B relationships. The company highlighted several key differences in B2B support:
1.) Relationship-driven: B2B support is about managing long-term partnerships, not just closing tickets.
2.) Knowledge-intensive: Problems are complex and require deep product expertise.
3.) Cross-functional teams: Support, customer success, and engineering teams must collaborate seamlessly.
4.) Account-level context: Understanding a customer’s full history, from contract value to feature usage, is essential.
With its platform, Pylon has grown rapidly, now serving over 750 companies, including Together AI and Temporal. According to the company, more than 150 of its customers have migrated from legacy platforms like Zendesk, Intercom, and Salesforce Service Cloud.
A major component of Pylon’s strategy is its AI layer, which it sees as an augmentation tool for human agents rather than a replacement. The company’s AI-powered features are built on a foundation of comprehensive customer data collected through its platform.
Pylon’s AI capabilities are designed to enhance productivity and provide actionable insights, including:
1.) AI Agents: Automate routine tasks, allowing human agents to focus on complex problem-solving.
2.) AI Assistants: Provide instant context and suggested responses to help agents work faster.
3.) Account Intelligence: Transforms conversational data into actionable signals for product, sales, and customer success teams.
How the funding will be used: The new funding will be used to expand the company’s product offerings, accelerate team growth across all departments, and further invest in its AI technology. Pylon plans to continue its focus on defining the future of B2B support, which it believes is integrated, actionable, and AI-native.
KEY QUOTE:
“We’re not just building another ticketing system. We’re building the first support platform for the entire post-sales team.”
“Most AI support tools fall short in B2B because they’re trying to replace human interactions instead of augmenting them.”
Statements from the company
