Otter.ai, a meeting note-taking tool, announced Tuesday that it has raised $320 million from General Catalyst’s Customer Value Fund (CVF). CVF funds startups without diluting their equity and profits from the results of their marketing spend.
Otter.ai said it will use these funds for company growth, go-to-market strategy, international expansion and product innovation.
The startup has been around for nearly a decade and raised a total of $50 million in funding in its last round in 2021, according to PitchBook data.
Last year, Otter reached a revenue milestone with annual recurring revenue (ARR) exceeding $100 million. The company said it is now nearing a new milestone, but did not provide the latest numbers.
The company said 40 million people have used its products so far, up from 25 million last year. But given how crowded meeting note-taking products are, the pertinent challenge for Otter will be to keep customers there. Unfortunately, the startup did not disclose any monthly active user or churn numbers.
“Voice is one of the biggest untapped opportunities in enterprise AI, and Otter is at the forefront of that, and Otter’s growth makes us even more convinced of that,” said Pranav Singhvi, partner and co-founder of CVF, General Catalyst. “When companies use Otter to capture critical voice data and turn it into actionable business insights, teams can act faster, decisions are made more clearly, and productivity increases across the organization. That’s why Otter is a powerful partner for CVF.”
There is stiff competition in the market from well-funded meeting note taking companies such as Fireflies.ai, Granola, and Read AI. New entrants like Calendly, Wispr, and Superhuman, which acquired Fathom. Other recorders include Circleback, Talat, and Quill.
Most of these note-takers want to connect to enterprise systems and automate workflows based on data captured in meetings. Otters are heading in that direction, too. In recent years, we’ve introduced meeting assistants, cross-app search capabilities, and integration with other AI tools.
Otter’s newly appointed CMO, Superhuman alum Alex Gay, told TechCrunch during a sit-down at last month’s HumanX conference that the company sees a huge opportunity in turning transcripts into an actionable roadmap for people attending back-to-back meetings.
“When we started thinking about what are the bigger issues that people are facing right now, we started to see a big problem in meeting-heavy roles where people are having back-to-back conversations. Meetings are their job, whether it’s with customers or from a sales perspective. “That’s where the strategy is discussed. But meetings are very inefficient because when you go into a meeting, you spend the first 20 minutes summarizing what was said before,” he said.
The company is currently experimenting with providing insights before, during and after meetings. We’re testing the ability to send users a pre-briefing with details and background information, including the context of previous conversations across surfaces. We’re also experimenting with the Live Assist feature, which allows users to ask questions and gain knowledge from the AI assistant during meetings.
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