Cape Town's Cue raises R82-million to take AI service agents global — The Cue team

Cue, a Cape Town-founded customer service software company, has raised US$5-million (R82-million) in a funding round co-led by South African venture capital firm Knife Capital and FAM Investments, to accelerate development of its AI agent platform and expand internationally.

It is the largest raise to date for the company, which was founded in 2015 and built its early business helping companies manage customer conversations over WhatsApp and other messaging channels. It has since repositioned itself around autonomous AI agents that resolve customer queries end to end.

Cue said its software powers customer conversations for more than 500 companies in the UK and South Africa across the automotive, retail, insurance, finance and education sectors, handling more than 500 million messages and conversations a year. Annual recurring revenue grew by more than 160% in its latest financial year.

The company said its first-generation AI agents already resolve more than 60% of customer conversations without human involvement. A second generation, now in development, will execute tasks across external systems – checking order status, booking appointments, qualifying sales leads and adding them to CRM platforms, and sending payment links. Where human intervention is needed, conversations are handed to support staff with full context via the company’s ticketing desk.

“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,” said Cue CEO Richard Nischk in a statement on Wednesday.

How the capital will be used

The new funding will go towards engineering – including voice infrastructure and security – as well as scaling sales and marketing in the UK and South Africa and entering new markets.

Read: R85-million for SA start-up reinventing the stethoscope with AI

“As AI reshapes enterprise software, the winners will be companies that enhance human capability rather than replace it,” said Keet van Zyl, founding partner at Knife Capital. “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.” — © 2026 NewsCentral Media