Newport-based tech firm Talkative has secured an increase in funding to drive its strategy of enabling human communication within customer-facing websites/apps.

The newly-raised funds will be used to accelerate customer acquisition, enable channel partnerships and further enrich the Talkative products for larger and more sophisticated customers.

The team is currently hiring for positions across sales, marketing and engineering, and is a key partner with Cardiff University's National Software Academy, which is based in Newport.

This is Talkative's second equity investment funding round, with the majority of the round being raised from existing venture capital investors including Wesley Clover, supplemented by Development Bank Wales, angel investors and the founding executive team.

Founder and director Felix Winstone said: "We're pleased to raise this additional funding, which allows us to accelerate our growth in this global market. We're bringing more talented people into the team who are aligned with our mission and are helping us to better service our growing client base. We've got some exciting plans for 2018/19 as we scale up our operations."

From its Newport headquarters Talkative is on a mission to bring together human interaction and digital acquisition. The product brings inbound phone calls into websites to make things easier for consumers, give more control for agents, and more data for marketers.

To-date, the Talkative solution has been deployed across travel, automotive, retail and financial services clients, driving web conversions and digital customer experience.