The pension fund’s investment arm led a US$20-million Series A round of funding for ultimate.ai, a Helsinki- and Berlin-based startup that uses artificial intelligence to build virtual customer service agents. Silicon Valley’s Felicis Ventures and the Berlin-based fund HV Capital also participated in the round. (TechCrunch)

Talking point: In a Medium post, OMERS Ventures managing partner Jambu Palaniappan said his firm looked “high and low for who was building the rails of the next customer experience revolution,” and honed in on ultimate.ai after an introduction from Techstars venture partner Connor Murphy. Palaniappan noted that ultimate.ai’s virtual agents can “automate up to 80 per cent of inbound support requests instantly,” and that the startup’s technology is language-agnostic. Ultimate.ai will use the money raised mainly for recruiting, according to co-founder Sarah Al-Hussaini, in a video announcement. In March 2019, OMERS launched a $455-million fund focused on investing in European technology startups, with a strategy to back companies at the Series A to B stages—it is unclear if the investment in ultimate.ai comes from this particular fund.