Founded in Paris, kickstarted in Silicon Valley, and now based in New York, Aircall is the poster child for French founders who are successfully building bridges between Europe and the U.S.
Founded in Paris, kickstarted in Silicon Valley, and now based in New York, Aircall is the poster child for French founders who are successfully building bridges between Europe and the U.S.
Listening to the co-founders of Aircall tell their story, their biggest challenges resulted from a key decision they made early on: Going international. But moving the CEO and headquarters to New York City played a pivotal role in launching the company on its current trajectory that includes unicorn status and talk of an IPO.
That decision only came after the company started in Paris via the eFounders studio, was accepted into the 500 Startups accelerator in Silicon Valley, and then returned to France assuming it had all the credibility it needed to succeed. When the company struggled with hiring and fundraising, CEO and co-founder Olivier Pailhes moved to New York along with co-founder Xavier Durand (who left in late 2020).
The other co-founders, COO Jonathan Anguelov and Head of Platform and Infrastructure Pierre-Baptiste Béchu, remained in Paris where they built the technical team. This became the kind of classic blueprint early on for French founders wanting to leverage the best of both countries: Marketing and finance in New York, technical team in Paris.
“You have a classical pattern where you say, ‘Okay, I want the East Coast and Paris because of the time zone difference,’” Pailhes said. “And I want to have key business functions in the U.S. because that’s where the talent is, That’s where you build startups at scale. You have large companies where you can source talent from, you have less of those in Europe.”
The company has been on a remarkable ride since its four co-founders first met in 2014. The company has left its early, difficult days behind and this summer announced it had closed a $120 million round in June. The cloud-based communications company is now valued at more than $1 billion.
The three remaining co-founders joined Ethan Pierse and I on The French Tech News for a conversation co-sponsored by French Tech North America.
THE AIRCALL MISSION
The idea for Aircall was actually born at eFounders, the Paris-based startup studio that has developed a remarkable track record for hatching interesting companies. eFounders identifies certain themes or concepts for startups, and then brings together teams that can develop and execute on the idea.
That was the case with Aircall. Various mixes of founding members initially shuffled in and out as the concept was refined. Eventually, the four co-founders developed a strong chemistry and it became clear that this would be the founding team in 2014.
“What I found interesting about our story is that we are coming from very different backgrounds,” said Béchu. “We are complementary. I think that the best founder stories are where people actually are very different and don’t necessarily match on their skill sets. Which, in my opinion, was what made us stick together and go through all the difficulties that we had at Aircall.”
The company continues to build on its original premise. Setting up phone systems was too complicated and time consuming. Aircall fixes that by creating the entire phone infrastructure in a way that connects to all of the company’s digital tools such as the CRM or the customer service department.
THE WINDING ROAD
Accepted into 500 Startups in SF in 2015. Returned to Paris and raised ~$10M in 2016. Struggles with hiring and investors in the US.
In 2017, Pailhes moved to NYC himself. He recruited Jeff Reekers as CMO. Tapping into the French Tech NYC community + Reekers’ network, Aircall attracted the talent needed. The U.S. is now 35% of Aircall’s revenues, Europe 40%.
“If you’re on the West Coast, the nine hours’ time difference, it’s just not manageable. It’s very hard to keep cohesiveness and unity. But New York also makes sense down the road because it’s easier to get on the stock market in New York than in Paris.”
TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES
Telecom services require >99.99% reliability. Aircall targeted international from day 1 rather than focusing on a couple of markets. First 3 years were very rough — quality issues left a mixed reputation. Took 4-5 years of continuous quality improvement to reach next level.
WHAT’S NEXT
$65M raised May 2020 (mid-COVID). $120M round in June 2021 → unicorn. Hired 150 people in 2020, 300 planned in 2021.
Paris = technical base. Madrid hub. Sydney for Asia. NYC for executives.
“The plan is world conquest. I think the biggest challenge we’re having now is how do you scale insanely fast?”