When was Directly founded?

Directly was founded in 2011 and raised its 1st funding round 2 years after it was founded.

Where is Directly located?

Directly is headquartered in Palo Alto, United States. It is registered at San Francisco, California.

Who is the current CEO of Directly?

Antony Brydon of Directly. They have also founded 1 company.

How many employees does Directly have?

As of May 31, 2026, the latest employee count at Directly is 382.

Is Directly a funded company?

Directly is a funded company, having raised a total of $67.7M across 8 funding rounds to date. The company's 1st funding round was a $***** Seed round, raised on Aug 12, 2013.

When was the latest funding round of Directly?

Directly's latest funding was a $***** Series B round on May 20, 2020, with participation from 8 investors.

Where does Directly rank among its competitors?

Directly ranks 10th amongst 595 active competitors, of which 83 are funded. It stands 4th in terms of total funding among its competitors. The most recent competitor to raise funding was Capacity, which secured $50M in Aug, 2025.

Who are the top competitors of Directly?

Directly's top competitors include Forethought AI, Liveops and Capacity. Among them, Capacity secured the most recent funding round in August, 2025.

Directly - 2026 Company Profile, Team, Funding & Competitors

Directly is an acquired company based in Palo Alto (United States), founded in 2011 by Antony Brydon, Jean Tessier and Jeff Patterson. It operates as a CrowdSourced Expert Customer Service. Directly has raised $67.7M in funding from investors like Toba Capital, Northgate Capital and Costanoa Venture. The company has 595 active competitors, including 83 funded and 44 that have exited. Its top competitors include companies like Forethought AI, Liveops and Capacity.

Company Details

Directly, an on-demand customer service app helps companies in building a network connecting customers with skilled experts. It routes helpdesk tickets and community questions to crowdsourced experts. Its helpdesk apps identify tickets and questions with skill based filtering and routes to a network of experts using skill based and reputation routing with performance rewards for services offered. With benchmarking experts can be measured against client’s support team. It is one of the entrepreneur Magazine’s Brilliant 100 companies.

Website: directly.com
Social
Email ID: *****@directly.com
Registered Address: San Francisco, California

Key Metrics

Founded Year

2011

Location

Palo Alto, United States

Stage

Acquired

Total Funding

$67.7M in 8 rounds

Latest Funding Round

Series B, May 20, 2020, $*****

Investors

Toba Capital & 17 more

Ranked

10^th among 595 active competitors

Employee Count

382 as on May 31, 2026

Investment & Acquisitions

Kylie

Similar Companies

Forethought AI & 853 more

Exit Details

Acquired by Movate (Mar 30, 2022)

View Directly's full profile

Directly is associated with 1 legal entity given below:

Legal Entity Name	Date of Incorporation	Revenue	Latest Employee Count	Documents
Directly, Inc. CIN: 451092372 , United States, Active	Dec 31, 1999	-	13 (As on Dec 31, 2022)	-

Directly got acquired by Movate on Mar 30, 2022.

Click here to take a look at Directly's acquisition in detail

Directly has raised a total funding of $67.7M over 8 rounds. Its first funding round was on Aug 12, 2013. Its latest funding round was a Series B round on May 20, 2020 for $*****. 8 investors participated in its latest round. Directly has 17 institutional investors and 1 angel investor.

Here is the list of recent funding rounds of Directly:

Filter this list

Date of Funding	Funding Amount	Round Name	Post-Money Valuation	Revenue Multiple	Lead Investors	Other Investors
May 20, 2020	7064725	Series B	7233011	2487901	4753085	2754567
Jan 29, 2020	1979486	Series B	6094123	5339652	7704629	M12 & 3 more
Apr 10, 2018	8693622	Venture Debt	3818652	7478621	8827459	SVB

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View details of Directly's funding rounds and investors

The founders of Directly are Antony Brydon, Jean Tessier and Jeff Patterson.

Here are the details of Directly's key team members:

Antony Brydon: Former Co-Founder & CEO of Directly and founder of 3 other companies, BrightLoop, Insidr and Visible Path. They serve on the board of 1 company.
Jean Tessier: Former Co-Founder of Directly.
Jeff Patterson: CTO & Co-founder of Directly.

Directly's Board of Directors

Directly's board has 3 active members. Jeff Patterson, Antony Brydon and Tomas Diaz Mathe are independent board members.

Here is the list of Directly's board of directors:

Name	Type	Representing	Status	Duration
Jeff Patterson	Independent board member	-	Current	10y 7m
xrmeqpm	Independent board member	-	Current	7y 9m
yacrtce	Independent board member	-	Current	5y 1m

View details of Directly's Founder profiles and Board Members

Directly's employee count trend

Directly has 382 employees as of May 26. Here is Directly's employee count trend over the years:

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Top competitors of Directly include Forethought AI, Liveops and Capacity. Here is the list of Top 10 competitors of Directly, ranked by Tracxn score:

Rank	Company Details	Short Description	Total Funding	Investors	Tracxn Score
1st	Forethought AI 2017, San Francisco (United States), Acquired	Provider of an AI platform for customer support and service teams	$117M	New Enterprise Associates, Blue Cloud Ventures ... & 34 others	72/100
2nd	Liveops 2000, Scottsdale (United States), Acquired	Flexible outsourcing solutions delivering exceptional customer experiences through human expertise and technology	$39M	August Capital, Saints Capital & 12 others	68/100
3rd	Capacity 2017, St. Louis (United States), Series D	AI based information and data integration management solution	$286M	Rice Park Capital Management, TVC Capital ... & 7 others	67/100
4th	Gradient Labs 2023, London (United Kingdom), Series A	AI agents to automate manual and repetitive tasks	$16.6M	LocalGlobe, Redpoint Ventures & 14 others	66/100
5th	Ada 2016, Toronto (Canada), Series C	AI platform for text based customer support	$200M	Spark Capital, Accel & 21 others	65/100
6th	Haptik 2013, Mumbai (India), Acquired	Developer of AI agents and related support and automation software	$12.2M	Times Internet, Kalaari Capital	64/100
7th	Pypestream 2015, New York City (United States), Series B	Provider of AI-powered platform automating business processes and customer interactions	$44.5M	Plug and Play Tech Center, WGI Group & 12 others	61/100
8th	eGain 1997, Sunnyvale (United States), Public	Provider of SaaS-based customer management software solutions for retail businesses	-	Oak Hill, Sunrise Ventures & 3 others	60/100
9th	SwiftChat 2021, Noida (India), Unfunded	Platform offering an AI-based chatbot	-	-	60/100
10th	Directly 2011, Palo Alto (United States), Acquired	CrowdSourced Expert Customer Service	$67.7M	Toba Capital, Industry Ventures & 16 others	59/100