A Malaysian startup is betting that the future of customer service runs through AI agents — and investors are backing that bet with serious money.
Respond.io, a messaging platform that uses AI agents to handle high volumes of customer inquiries, has raised $62.5 million in new funding, according to TechCrunch. The company is one of Malaysia's most closely watched startups in the AI space.
What sets Respond.io apart from conventional customer service software is its pricing model: rather than charging businesses per user seat — the standard approach in enterprise software — the company charges per conversation. That structure aligns the company's revenue directly with how much work its AI agents actually do, rather than how many people a company has licensed.
With the fresh capital, the company is eyeing acquisitions in North America and Europe, per TechCrunch, signaling ambitions well beyond its Southeast Asian home base.
The raise reflects a broader shift in enterprise software, where companies are moving away from tools that merely assist human workers and toward AI systems that can independently manage entire customer interactions at scale. For businesses fielding thousands of inquiries daily, that promise of automation without proportional headcount growth is increasingly hard to ignore.