Interactions

founder: michael cloran Equity raised: $163 million Estimated 2017 revenue: $100 million

Lead investors: comcast ventures, cross atlantic capital partners, newspring capital, revolution growth, sigma partners, softbank capital

What it does: makes software for robo-voice customer-service systems. interactions’ selling point: its software, powered by artificial intelligence, includes a human element. when the software fails to understand a thick accent or muffled word, a human steps in to trigger the correct response. among its more than 50 customers: hyatt hotels and health insurer humana. in 2014, interactions, based in franklin, massachusetts, acquired a division of at&t labs, including its speech-recognition technology and 40 staffers, in a stock deal that gave at&t a stake in the company.