Draper Esprit invests £10m in French software company

Draper Esprit has this morning (May 16) announced a £10m investment in French cloud-based call centre software business Aircall.

The London-headquartered venture capital firm led on a Series B funding round that brought Aircall’s total investment to date to $40.5m (c.£30m).

Other investors in the round included US firm NextWorld Capital, France-based Newfund and London’s Balderton Capital.

The new eight-figure funding will accelerate the buildout of Aircall’s cloud-based phone system, including integrations with existing software used by businesses.

The company will also make senior hires both in Europe and the US.

Founded in 2014 to create a platform for simplifying phone support, Aircall now offers instant phone numbers across more than 40 countries. Its collaborative phone app lets teams share and follow up calls, and can connect to any CRM or customer support tool.

Draper Esprit CEO Simon Cook said: “We look forward to partnering with the Aircall team to help the company grow and develop its transformative technology further.

“With over 3,000 business customers worldwide, they have quickly established themselves as one of the fastest growing cloud-based phone systems in the market and we are very excited to be supporting Aircall on the next stage of its growth journey.”

He continued: “Our investment in Aircall adds to Draper Esprit’s significant momentum this year, with recent investments in Ledger and Revolut, along with new commitments to European seed funds Join Capital and Icebreaker.”