Acclaim names UK boss as it expands into US market

Acclaim has expanded in the UK with the appointment of Paul Thomas as Senior Vice President, EMEA, as it also enters the US market under new Chief Executive Officer Fred Fontes.

The company, formerly known as Aiphoria, said the expansion is backed by a $34 million Series A funding round led by Ratmir Timashev, co-founder of Veeam and an adviser to Acclaim.

Acclaim develops voice-based artificial intelligence tools for customer service in regulated sectors including banking, insurance and healthcare. Its systems are designed to meet compliance, audit and data sovereignty requirements across the US, UK and EU.

Thomas joins from NiCE, where he was Senior Vice President and General Manager. He will focus on growing Acclaim's regional presence and partner network in Europe.

Fontes previously served as Chief Customer Officer at Replicant. Earlier in his career, he held leadership roles at Aera and advised on artificial intelligence projects at McKinsey & Company.

Acclaim's software is aimed at high-volume customer interactions such as sales, collections and service enquiries. It is marketed to businesses that need automated systems to operate within strict rules and maintain reviewable records.

Customer base

Acclaim cited its work with TBC Uzbekistan, the digital banking arm of TBC Group, as an example of deployment at scale. By the end of 2025, TBC Uzbekistan, which has more than 23 million registered users, was handling 90 per cent of early-stage delinquency calls and 100,000 monthly sales interactions through AI agents.

Nika Kurdiani, Chief Executive Officer of TBC Uzbekistan, described the work as part of a broader internal effort.

"We were pleased to work with Acclaim to support the development of our foundational AI stack. Alongside our internal team, Acclaim's work assisted in building our Uzbek-language LLMs and Speech Tech, in what is one of Central Asia's most ambitious AI projects. This technology powers AI agents across sales and collections that have driven efficiency gains and delivered an improved customer experience, and also underpins Lola, our proprietary AI banking assistant, which we launched in Friends and Family mode late last year and which is now being rolled out to all customers," Kurdiani said.

Acclaim also highlighted activity in Latin America, where it has appointed Fernando Bertolla as Vice President, LATAM. Bertolla previously served as a vice president at Salesforce.

Banco Plata, a digital bank in the region, has also worked with Acclaim. Andrey Shelekhin, Chief Technology Officer of Banco Plata, said: "Building a technology-first bank means solving hard engineering problems every day and constantly deciding which technologies are actually worth betting on. We believe that AI creates remarkable opportunities - but in a noisy sector, partners with real, specialised expertise matter more than ever. Engaging with Acclaim's engineers has given us access to unique, deep knowledge in real-time voice processing and voice agent development that's hard to find elsewhere."

Leadership changes

Alongside Thomas, Acclaim has appointed Chris Gould as Chief Information Security Officer. Gould previously worked at EY and PwC and has nearly four decades of cybersecurity experience.

Thomas said Acclaim's technical approach was a key factor in his decision to join. "What impressed me immediately is the engineering discipline behind the founders and the broader technical team at Acclaim. This isn't stitched-together automation. Acclaim's production-grade voice AI is built to operate under real compliance constraints and make a real impact on CX programs. This is critical as regional organisations face immense pressure to comply with the EU AI Act and other emerging regulations," he said.

Timashev said his investment reflects the view that companies need automation that works within compliance rules while still meeting customer expectations. "Everyone is racing to deploy AI agents, yet no customer wakes up hoping to speak with a robot. I'm invested in Acclaim because it closes that gap. Acclaim delights customers, accelerates sales, and safeguards compliance from day one. That's a rare and winning combination," he said.

Fontes said the company's existing deployments show it can handle demanding financial services use cases. "The founding team at Acclaim has built a proven platform capable of serving 50M+ users across some of the most demanding environments in financial services. Today, we take the next step in our company's evolution, expanding to the U.S. Acclaim is poised to fill the massive market need for automating customer experience with empathy via conversational AI agents at scale," he said.