OpenDialog raises $8M to boost conversational AI in regulated industries

This week, conversation AI platform company OpenDialog announced it has raised over $8 million in a Series A round led by AlbionVC.

While conversational AI platforms are nothing new, OpenDialog stands out for developing tech suitable for use in regulated industries. 

With an initial focus on the healthcare and insurance sectors, OpenDialog has developed a no-code platform that allows enterprises, from insurance giant Davies Group to NHS trusts and beyond, to combine the market’s most powerful LLMs and NLU technologies into a single automation platform.

These enterprises use OpenDialog to build AI-powered chatbots and digital assistants tailored to their specific business and regulatory needs, with fine-grained control over how the AI is used to provide the highest levels of automation whilst ensuring compliance. 

A context-first approach

OpenDialog uses a context-first, multi-agent methodology to develop its conversational AI applications.

This makes it possible to automate multi-step business processes through natural conversation — something even the most advanced LLMs cannot complete. Furthermore, this process can take just a few weeks and can be achieved without specialist teams.

This results in improved productivity, operational efficiency, agility and scalability and provides unprecedented flexibility in using the most advanced and generative AI models and de-risks investment into conversational AI by ensuring the deployment is future-proofed as the technology evolves.

Recent use cases include a legal firm using the platform to triage the eligibility of applicants for a class-action lawsuit and a pharmaceutical company interacting with people reporting adverse effects from the use of their medicines.

For one client in the insurance sector, 9 out of 10 tasks are now entirely automated, including selling a personalised policy, adding partners, changing addresses, or making claims.

Since raising its seed round in spring 2022, OpenDialog has quadrupled its headcount, with staff numbers increasing to over 40.

OpenDialog’s latest funding, which included participation by Dowgate Capital and several angel investors, directors and staff, takes the total raised by the British company to $13 million. 

Terry Walby, co-founder and CEO of OpenDialog, said:

 “We’re building a category-defining business that redefines the way humans interact with technology and that makes advanced and Generative AI realisable for enterprises. 

Businesses are keen to take advantage of the technology they see manifested in applications like ChatGPT, but they’re struggling to figure out how to make that a reality in a business context without exposing themselves to risks. 

We can offer them the security, granular control, explainability and safety essential for all businesses, particularly those operating in regulated sectors like insurance, healthcare, financial services and utilities.”

Ed Lascelles, Partner at AlbionVC, said:

 “Conversational AI has evolved massively since early chatbots. 

In OpenDialog, we have a team of proven entrepreneurs and technologists who have successfully built and scaled enterprise businesses before, and we’re convinced that they have the potential to be one of a handful of global leaders in this once-in-a-generation transformation.”

OpenDialog will use the new funding for R&D and to accelerate expansion into the US market.