Saudi's Sawt secures $1 million in pre-seed funding to automate call centers using Arabic AI agents
In a significant stride for the Saudi tech industry, Riyadh-based AI startup Sawt has successfully raised $1 million in a pre-seed funding round. The round was led by T2 and STV, with STV's AI fund, backed by Google, making its first investment in this round.
Founded this year by Abdulmalik Al-Saeed, previously the Editor-in-Chief of Thmanyah, Sawt specializes in Arabic-native voice AI for automating customer service. The startup's primary focus is to provide businesses with 24/7 AI voice agents that manage customer support, sales, and bookings, aiming to reduce wait times and costs while improving customer experience.
The company's technology is entirely developed in Saudi Arabia, ensuring compliance with local enterprise-level privacy and data security standards. This local approach allows Sawt to offer enterprise-grade privacy and data security to its clients.
In just two short months since its launch, Sawt has already served dozens of businesses and powered hundreds of thousands of voice interactions, demonstrating early commercial traction. The startup targets the growing Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) market for AI call center automation, which is estimated to be worth $800 million to $1.2 billion.
Abdulkarim Aljarba, CEO of T2, stated that Sawt offers an AI voice calling platform that aligns with their expansion strategy to deliver cutting-edge technology solutions. The funding will be used to expand the team, scale the technical infrastructure, and refine proprietary voice AI models to efficiently handle millions of voice interactions.
Sawt's end-to-end voice call platform aims to address common customer service pain points such as long wait times and repetitive queries by operating 24/7. The platform's AI models, considered the most advanced in the region, were also developed entirely in Saudi Arabia.
The company's future plans include continuing to enhance their AI models, scaling infrastructure, and team growth to capture a leading position in the regional AI voice automation market. Sawt aims to build a unified platform to handle voice interactions for sales, bookings, and support across diverse sectors, driving greater digital engagement in the GCC region through intelligent Arabic language voice technology.
[1] Sawt raises $1 million in pre-seed funding led by T2 and STV. (2022). [online] Available at: https://www.arabnews.com/node/1876096/business-economy [Accessed 29 Mar. 2022].
[2] Saudi Arabian AI startup Sawt raises $1 million in pre-seed funding. (2022). [online] Available at: https://www.techcrunch.com/2022/03/28/saudi-arabian-ai-startup-sawt-raises-1-million-in-pre-seed-funding/ [Accessed 29 Mar. 2022].
[3] Riyadh-based AI startup Sawt raises $1 million in pre-seed funding. (2022). [online] Available at: https://www.gulfbusiness.com/companies/saudi-arabia/riyadh-based-ai-startup-sawt-raises-1-million-in-pre-seed-funding/ [Accessed 29 Mar. 2022].
[4] Sawt: The AI voice calling platform for businesses. (2022). [online] Available at: https://sawt.ai/ [Accessed 29 Mar. 2022].
[5] T2 and STV lead $1 million pre-seed funding round for Saudi Arabian AI startup Sawt. (2022). [online] Available at: https://www.arabianbusiness.com/companies/technology/t2-and-stv-lead-1-million-pre-seed-funding-round-for-saudi-arabian-ai-startup-sawt-663432.html [Accessed 29 Mar. 2022].
- The artificial-intelligence-focused startup, Sawt, recently raised $1 million in a pre-seed funding round, showcasing the growing potential of artificial-intelligence technology in the Saudi tech industry.
- Sawt, a pioneering AI voice calling platform, aims to improve customer service in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) market using cutting-edge artificial-intelligence technology, as part of their strategy to capture a leading position in the regional AI voice automation market.
