SA’s Cue secures $5m for AI service agents

Cue, a South African AI-powered customer service platform, has received $5-million in a primary funding round co-led by Knife Capital and FAM Investments. The funding will support product development, international expansion and further investment in voice technology, security and enterprise integrations.

Cue is developing the second generation of its AI agents designed to resolve customer service issues from first contact to final action without human intervention in many cases. When human support is required, the platform transfers the conversation and its full context to Cue’s unified inbox and ticketing system.

Cue provides customer service technology to more than 500 companies in the UK and South Africa across the automotive, retail, insurance, finance and education sectors. According to the company, annual recurring revenue increased by more than 160% in the latest financial year, while the platform processes more than 500-million messages and conversations a year.

The company describes its approach as “automation-first, but never automation only”. Cue says its AI agents handle repetitive, high-volume work, while human agents focus on more complex, sensitive and relationship-based customer interactions.

“It’s an exciting time of transformation for the company,” says Richard Nischk, Cue CEO. “We’re at an inflection point for AI in customer service, and we see more businesses starting to realise that they need a unified platform to succeed, not a patchwork of point solutions.”

Where Cue is today

Customer service technology has often developed around separate channels, resulting in different systems for voice, email, messaging and social media. Cue combines these channels in one platform, where autonomous AI agents and human support teams can manage customer interactions.

The company says agentic AI can reduce costs and support revenue growth, although implementation can be slow and expensive. Cue aims to shorten the deployment process so businesses can begin using the technology sooner.

“Rising costs have put support teams under pressure to do more with less,” says Nischk. “At the same time, consumers want self-service but are increasingly frustrated by poor automated experiences. Our goal is to help businesses deliver a genuinely great automated experience, while also recognising that escalating to a human is often the right thing to do.”

For the first time, says Cue, the technology is ready. According to the company, advances in Frontier AI mean the technology can now reason, decide, and take action, not just respond. The company says independent benchmarks show leading models resolving most real customer support tasks autonomously, including multi-step workflows such as processing a return or updating an account.  Cue is developing a platform intended to address what the company describes as the remaining gap: deploying the technology safely across every channel and at scale.

Cue Agents

Cue’s first-generation agents can resolve over 60% of customer conversations autonomously. The next iteration aims to enable the secure execution of complex tasks across different systems, such as qualifying leads and adding them to CRMs, checking order status, booking appointments, handling student applications, and sending payment links.

Cue is building the infrastructure to let AI agents handle complex tasks and resolve customer queries across systems securely.

“Customer service remains the lifeblood of every enduring business,” says Keet van Zyl, Knife Capital founding partner. “As AI reshapes enterprise software, the winners will be companies that enhance human capability rather than replace it. Cue has built a platform that delivers measurable value today, led by a team with the vision, technical depth and execution ability to be a category leader. That’s exactly the type of business Knife Capital looks to back.”

Where this funding takes Cue

Nischk says: “Our growth strategy reflects exactly what our clients are asking for: an all-in-one AI powered customer service platform that delivers value and best in class service, across every channel.”

According to Cue, the $5-million will accelerate the following three priorities:

• Engineering: Cue’s next wave of autonomous AI agents, deeper voice infrastructure, stronger security, and a broader platform.
• Go-to-market: Scaling sales and marketing across the UK and South Africa as Cue moves into new verticals and international markets.
• Product: More channels, additional agent actions, deeper integrations and advanced analytics. The future of customer service.