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British Business Bank announces £15m investment into PolyAI

Press release 15 December 2025

The British Business Bank has announced a £15 million investment into PolyAI, a leader in enterprise conversational AI, as part of an $86 million Series D funding round.

The round was co-led by Georgian, Hedosophia, Khosla Ventures, with additional investment from NVentures (NVIDIA’s VC arm), Sands Capital, Squarepoint Ventures, Citi Ventures, and Point72 Ventures. 

PolyAI builds advanced AI voice agents that can hold natural, human-like conversations and handle complex customer service calls. PolyAI’s agents can understand intent, handle multi-step tasks like authentication, bookings or payments, integrate with enterprise systems, and deliver high-quality service at scale. This improves customer experience while meaningfully reducing operational costs.

According to a Total Economic Impact™ study by Forrester, PolyAI customers achieve 391% return on investment, including an average of $10.3 million in savings, improved customer and employee experience, stronger insights, and increases in profits. The company has over 100 enterprise customers across hospitality, retail, logistics, and financial services in 45 languages and more than 25 countries. Clients include the likes of FedEx, Marriott, Unicredit and Foot Locker.

The funding will be used to further develop the proprietary technology behind PolyAI’s Agent Studio, with the goal of helping enterprises use every customer conversation to learn and grow.

Leandros Kalisperas, Chief Investment Officer at British Business Bank, said: 

The UK has all the right components to be a world leader in AI, with strong technological talent and the venture market to back it up. For the UK to realise its AI ambitions, we must support fast growing AI companies like PolyAI by providing them with the capital they need to succeed and grow here in the UK. This will help to ensure we benefit from their growth and success.

Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, said,

We are investing in companies like PolyAI so we can grow the economy and create good jobs. Our backing, combined with our world leading universities, strong private investment, and our AI Growth Zones makes the UK one of the best places in the world to build an AI start up. By doubling eligibility thresholds for enterprise tax incentives, introducing a new three year Stamp Duty holiday for firms that list in the UK, and maintaining the lowest rate of corporation tax in the G7, we are going further to attract the companies of the future.

George Mills, Investment Director at British Business Bank, said: 

PolyAI is one of the UK’s homegrown AI champions. The company has demonstrated impressive results for its clients and its platform has vast cross-sector potential, which anyone who has spent hours on hold will know. We are delighted to be partnering with them in their next phase and excited to see their continued success.

Nikola Mrkšić, CEO and Co-Founder of PolyAI, said: 

This Series D financing is proof of the industry’s confidence in our abilities and the potential of our technology. This investment will kick start the next stage of our growth cycle and ensure that we can continue to deliver best-in-class technology for enterprises looking to transform their customer and employee experience.

Further Information

If you are a journalist and have a media enquiry, please contact mediaenquiries@british-business-bank.co.uk.

Notes to editors

About the British Business Bank

The British Business Bank is the UK government’s economic development bank. Established in November 2014, its mission is to drive sustainable growth and prosperity across the UK and to enable the transition to a net zero economy, by improving access to finance for smaller businesses. Its remit is to design, deliver and efficiently manage UK-wide smaller business access to finance programmes for the UK government.

The British Business Bank’s core programmes support £23bn1 1  of finance to almost 64,0002 2  smaller businesses.
British Business Bank plc is a public limited company registered in England and Wales, registration number 08616013, registered office at Steel City House, West Street, Sheffield, S1 2GQ. It is a development bank wholly owned by HM Government. British Business Bank plc and its subsidiaries are not banking institutions and do not operate as such. With the exception of BBB Investment Services Limited they are not authorised or regulated by the Prudential Regulation Authority or the Financial Conduct Authority. BBB Investment Services Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. A complete legal structure chart for the group can be found at British Business Bank.

The transaction described above does not constitute or imply any endorsement, warranty or recommendation by the UK government, the British Business Bank plc, its subsidiaries or any other party in respect of PolyAI or its products or services.

About PolyAI

PolyAI is transforming customer experience with AI agents that help enterprises show up as the best versions of themselves in every conversation. We are trusted by global leaders including Marriott, Caesars, PG&E, and UniCredit to handle their most complex customer interactions. Our agents deliver human-level understanding with enterprise-grade reliability, and many of our largest deployments already do the work of 1,000+ full-time employees. 

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