Ozonetel Communications, a cloud communication services company, has raised institutional money for the first time in nearly a half-century to capitalise on the covid-induced spike in demand for remote working solutions.

Stakeboat Capital, a private equity firm located in Bengaluru, contributed $5 million in Ozonetel's Series A fundraising round, the first in 14 years. The funds will be used to expand operations in the United States and treble headcount in order to sustain growth in the coming year.

“We have consciously stayed bootstrapped since inception and focused on creating industry leading tech,” CSN Murthy, founder and chief executive at Ozonetel. “We are now thrilled to have an active and supportive investor with us as we take our tech to more global markets.” The company has a goal of hitting the $100 million annual recurring revenue mark in the next four years, he said.

In the last 12 months, the Hyderabad- and San Francisco-based company saw a 100 percent increase in business and doubled its customer base. It claims to have assisted businesses in relocating 15,000 customer support agents to work from home in just two weeks.

Ozonetel provides contact/call centre-as-a-service (CCaaS) to startups and businesses, allowing 100,000 call centre workers to handle more than 10 million calls every day. Its platform is used by more than 10,000 developers to integrate voice, SMS, WhatsApp, and other communication channels into their products.

While it will add sales and marketing staff in the United States, the business said it will continue to focus on Southeast Asia and the Middle East, as well as expanding its footprint in India.

“The pandemic has changed the way enterprises are approaching their call centre ops. With Ozonetel’s disruptive CCaaS and CPaaS platforms, businesses will be able to turn call centres into profit centres,” said Chandrasekar Kandasamy, managing partner at Stakeboat Capital. “This is even more critical in the new remote work environment post-pandemic.”