There are countless services out there that promise to help salespeople gain a better understanding of prospects, but according to Chorus.ai Ltd, many of them overlook a major source of insight: phone calls.

The two-year-old startup announced today that it has closed $16 million in funding to unlock the information that can be gleaned from talking with leads. The financing was provided by Redpoint Ventures and Emergence Capital, a cloud-focused venture firm that led Chorus.ai’s previous $6.3 million raise in October.

Tomasz Tunguz, a partner with Redpoint, said in a statement that his decision to back the startup followed a year of careful market research. The investor believes that Chorus.ai has established a strong position with its artificial intelligence platform, which can analyze a salesperson’s conversation with leads to find areas for improvement. Its algorithms spring into action the moment that a user makes a call via their company’s phone system or online meeting service.

According to its website, Chorus.io records conversations using speech recognition technology while allowing sales personnel to add time-stamped notes that are automatically attached to the appropriate part of the transcript. Then once the discussion is over, it’s added to a call log that displays information such as the subject of the conversation and the stage of the deal discussed during the exchange. These details are all generated without requiring any manual input.

The true strength of Chorus.ai, however, lies in the transcripts themselves. The platform can highlight mentions of budget data, negotiation developments and other important information to help salespeople prepare more effectively for the next stage of the talks. Users also have the option of sharing details from a notable conversation with peers to let them draw their own lessons.

Roy Raanani, the co-founder and chief executive of Chorus.ai, told TechCrunch that he plans to broaden the platform’s feature even further using today’s funding. He said that his team is looking to add a mechanism for automatically bringing up product details and other useful information during appropriate parts of the call to help salespeople react faster during negotiations.

Image: Chorus.ai