Why I’m all in at Parloa

Every operator makes a bet.

Investors get to place many. Operators? We get one portfolio: our time. That makes our portfolios much smaller, and for me, that also makes the decision deeply personal. If I'm going to commit—my energy, my attention, my name—it better be a problem worth solving and a business worth building. Because I don’t do "just a job." I do causes: the irrational, all-in kind that consumes your mind and demands everything.

So when Parloa landed on my radar, I asked two questions:

1. Is this a cause I believe in?

2. Is this a company that can win?

The answer to both was yes.

Let’s start with the cause

We're solving one of the most maddening, high-impact issues in modern business: customer experience is flat-out broken. It takes five minutes on Reddit to see it: people stuck in endless loops, battling systems that seem designed to frustrate them. They wait hours for help, only to get deflected. Or worse, get scammed because a legitimate brand passed the buck. 

I’ve seen this nightmare up close when a family member’s identity was stolen after being deflected from a support line to a fake website. These are life-shattering failures. People deserve better. It’s no wonder ~40% of customers leave a brand after just one bad service experience, and 95% spread the word about it.

And brands? They’re stuck, caught between cost-cutters and unhappy customers

Contact centers get chopped as "cost centers," not value drivers. That’s ironic coming from marketing, where we spend millions of dollars and fight tooth and nail to pull people in and start conversations with customers. But when those calls finally come, it’s wild to see the opposite happen: instead of help, customers hit walls. It makes no sense.

Every call pushed away is a lost second chance to build trust and money’s left on the table. To put a number on that, companies that invest in both brand and customer experience together see up to 3.5x more revenue growth. Meanwhile, those delivering poor customer experience could lose up to ~$3.8 trillion financially. 

But even the companies that try to solve for experience often fall short. I’ve seen plenty of righteous missions fizzle without the engine to drive them. 

So my next question mattered just as much: Can Parloa actually win?

We’re going after the toughest channel with the biggest ROI: voice. It’s high-stakes, high-reward. If you get a $5 shirt return 75% right, no big deal. But a health insurance claim? A financial dispute? That better be spot-on. Because the margin for error disappears.

And the market’s massive. Voice is still the dominant support channel across industries like insurance, healthcare, telecom, and finance. While 86% of customers try self-service first, 56% still prefer phone support. Voice isn’t going anywhere.

And while it’s not just about voice—it’s about multimodal conversations across voice, chat, and everything in between—voice is the hardest channel to get right. It’s where context, emotion, latency, and complexity all collide. When you nail voice, the other channels become a lot easier by comparison.

Moreover, every enterprise on the planet is rethinking service delivery as AI reshapes how customers interact with brands. So when you truly understand your customers and resolve the call, the value is exponential. Because it becomes the foundation for every other channel.

I knew right then Parloa could revolutionize the industry

I keep coming back to what Ajeet Singh, Founder of Lightspeed, said on a podcast: he’d rather take execution risk than market risk. Same here. Because the market’s huge and the pain is obvious. The only variable is execution. And I’ve seen what this team can do.

At 6sense, I saw firsthand how data and powerful AI technology could create a moat. We didn’t just talk about differentiation; we could prove our edge. With Parloa, it’s the same feeling. There’s a deep product advantage here: the ability to deliver accuracy, context, and continuity in conversations that matter. That’s rare. And it’s real.

Then I met Malte, Chris, and Csaba, and that sealed it. This wasn’t just a company with potential. It was a team with urgency, passion, and conviction behind the “why.” That’s the kind of team you want to run with, and it’s why I’m confident I made the right call.

Now it’s the next chapter.

Sure, we've been flying under the radar outside Europe, but it’s time to change that. Because putting companies on the map? That’s what my team and I do. The board’s set and now we’re laying down the bold moves to inspire change and deliver the exceptional experiences customers crave.

I’m ready to roll up my sleeves and make it happen.

Let’s GO!