Irish firm Webio gets €500,000 financing

Webio, which is based in Dublin, was founded earlier this year by Graham Brierton. It has received €250,000 from the enterprise agency and the remainder from Cameo, which is based in California.

Webio says its artificial intelligence solution "works alongside live agents, assisting them in making quick, decisive outcomes-based customer responses". It claims that its product helps to improve agent productivity by up to 80pc.

The firm says its system also enables clients to bring all their customer channels together to deliver a unified experience. It says that this can increase customer engagement by 60pc.

Webio's executives include Mr Brierton, inset, who is chairman and chief technical officer of the firm.

He was also a founding member of Irish company VoiceSage. That firm sells an interactive messaging system that automates outbound customer interactions, helping to reduce calls made by agents.

VoiceSage is backed by a number of high profile investors including former NTR chief executive Jim Barry; the former head of Irish Distillers, Richard Burrows, who's now the chairman of British American Tobacco; and the Sisk family that's behind the building firm.

Webio's other senior executives include Paul Sweeney and Mark Oppermann. Both of those executives are also former VoiceSage employees.

Two Cameo Global executives are directors of Webio - John Leonhardt and Benjamin Stockton.

Mr Stockton is the chairman of Cameo and a founding member. Mr Leonhardt is the president of Cameo's European arm.

Cameo provides clients with a range of IT services. They include call centre and data centre solutions, as well as network security and unified communications.

It works closely with industry partners including Cisco, APC and Juniper Networks.