Afiniti International Holdings Ltd., also called Afiniti, is an American multinational data and software company based in Washington, D.C. Founded in 2005, Afiniti is focused on developing artificial intelligence for use in customer call centers. With a 2017 valuation of $1.6 billion, the company is considered a unicorn.
History
2005–2016
Afiniti was founded in 2005 in Washington, D.C. by Zia Chishti, a former Morgan Stanleyinvestment banker who had previously co-founded Align Technology. In 2008 the company submitted several patents related to matching caller data with computer models, which were granted in 2014. The company confidentially filed for a potential future initial public offering in late 2016. Around that time Afiniti also introduced software to run phone numbers "through a variety of databases prior to when a call center agent picks up the phone." The system referred to around 100 databases to gather information on callers, including from public profiles such as Twitter. According to Fortune, the system operated on "the idea that it's possible, using thousands of call records, to determine which agents perform best with certain type of customers."
2017–2018
According to The Wall Street Journal, by January 2017 the company had installed its artificial intelligence software in around 150 call centers for several dozen companies, among them Caesars Entertainment Corporation and Sprint. By April 2017 the company was valued at $1.6 billion and had board members such as John W. Snow and José Maria Aznar. That month the company closed a fourth round of venture funding, bringing in $80 million from investors such as GAM, McKinsey & Co, Elisabeth Murdoch, and John Browne. The round brought the company's total funding raised since its inception to $100 million. Afiniti signed a deal with Huaweiin September 2017 and Avaya in April 2018. In January 2018, Fortune included Afiniti on its list of the 100 companies "leading the way in A.I." By June 2018, Afiniti was active in 18 countries and had 1,000 employees. Afiniti moved its headquarters to a larger building in Washington, D.C. in July 2018. It was featured on a Forbes list of exits to watch in 2018. According to Chishti, the company saw 100 percent revenue growth each year between 2013 and 2017.
Services and technology
According to the company, its software uses AI to help companies increase efficiency by "predicting interpersonal behavior" between the callers and agents. VentureBeat explains that "when a customer calls into a call center, Afiniti matches their phone number — either landline or cellphone — with any information tied to it from up to 100 databases. These databases carry purchase history, income, and other demographic information." Data on customers is collected from the customers and from data brokers. Afiniti does not charge for the software or service itself, but instead takes a percentage of any proven revenue increases resulting from use of the software.
