Pylon - The Customer Support Platform Built for B2B Companies

Company & Team Introduction

Not every business operates in a consumer-facing environment, yet every customer support platform is designed as if they do. Modern businesses often engage across channels like Slack, Microsoft Teams, and other in-app chat—platforms that enable real-time collaboration but are not typically supported by conventional helpdesk solutions. The founding team at Pylon identified this gap in the market and set out to build a support solution tailored explicitly for B2B interactions, bringing support touchpoints closer to B2B companies’ existing workflows. The company was founded in 2022 by Marty Kausas (CEO), Robert Eng, and Advith Chelikani. Before Pylon, Marty held various software engineering roles at companies like Airbnb and Clipboard Health and was an investor via a16z’s scout fund. Advith held Senior Engineer/Team Lead roles at Samsara, and Robert worked as a software engineer at Affinity and IKASI. The trio’s experience working at various top B2B and B2C companies, combined with the rigorous market research they conducted when validating ideas, positions the team well to bridge this gap in the market. Pylon is headquartered in San Francisco, California and has scaled its team to ~19 employees.

Product Overview

Pylon is the customer support platform tailored to service B2B customers. Their platform is designed to centralize support across multiple communication channels, including typical mediums such as email and in-app chat, as well as untraditional channels such as Slack and Microsoft Teams. This breadth of support touchpoints helps companies better service their customers in their existing workflows, addressing the unique challenges of B2B environments, where customers often interact through dedicated Slack or Teams, which traditional support tools don’t support. Key features of Pylon’s platform include consolidating everything a B2B support team requires, such as ticketing, a chat widget, a unified inbox, a knowledge base, and AI-driven support tools. Pylon also offers in-depth analytics, integrates with CRM systems, and syncs support data for a complete customer view (C360), which helps support teams access relevant information and resolve issues efficiently. The platform also supports custom sidebar apps for agents to access more tailored resources and workflows. Security is also at the center of focus for Pylon; they’re SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA, GDPR, and ISO 27001 compliant.

Total Addressable Market

The market opportunity for Pylon is enormous. Based on research from verifiedmarketresearch.com, the total addressable market for customer support software is already estimated to be as large as $14.9B in 2024, and ever-increasing demand as well-built customer support systems are essential today for companies wanting to support customers efficiently. In addition to the already huge market size, experts are forecasting an explosive 20.94% CAGR through 2031, expanding the potential market size to north of $68B by 2031.

Business Model & The Numbers

Plyon uses a simple self-service seat-based subscription model to monetize its platform. Pylon offers 3 tiers, starting with its “Starter” tier, which is priced at $70/seat/month and gives companies access to features such as their unified support inbox, knowledge base, traditional support endpoints (email, chat widget, forms), broadcasts, proactive ticketing, AI article generation, and support via widget/email. Pylon’s “Professional” tier is $118/seat/month and offers everything in the “starter” package plus new sources Slack Connect (connects users from different companies in shared channels), Slack Community (enables companies to build a helpful community around their product), access to developer APIs, webhooks, custom issue cards, integrations with existing workflows including Ticketing, CRM, and Alerting, CSAT metrics, AI autofill fields/titles, access to their APIs, slack support and an onboarding session. The “Enterprise” tier is $167/seat/month and gives customers access to everything in the “Professional” tier plus Microsoft Teams support, a customer portal for customers to share issues, a security review, Role-based access control, and an MSA, multiple knowledge bases, Incident Management and Data Warehouse integrations, custom dashboards, a dedicated CSM and priority support SLAs.

Traction

Pylon quickly found product market fit amongst high-growth software companies experiencing the nuances between B2C and B2B customer support platforms. This is evident by their rapid customer growth, scaling from just a few early adopters to ~250 companies using Pylon in ~2 years. Among its customers are some of the fastest-growing startups in the world, ranging from massive unicorns such as Deel, Anyscale, and Applied Intuition to promising earlier-stage startups like Hightouch, Lumos, and Posthog, all trust Plyon as their support platform to manage vital customer interactions. Customers also rave about Pylon’s platform, with 47/48 reviews on G2 being 5 stars and the one other being 4 stars.

Competitors

The customer support software market is highly competitive, with numerous well-established players like Zendesk, Intercom, and Freshdesk, each offering suites of tools tailored to streamline support workflows. However, while most of these solutions cater to consumer-focused businesses, they often fall short in a B2B setting. Pylon differentiates itself by focusing exclusively on the needs of B2B companies, integrating directly with channels like Slack, Microsoft Teams, and in-app chat—platforms where B2B support often happens. This targeted approach allows Pylon to deliver a tailored, omnichannel support experience that most competitors don’t offer. Another differentiating factor of Pylon is its intuitive UI, as customers reaching out to support teams are often already frustrated or confused, so any friction in submitting a ticket or reaching support can compound their dissatisfaction. A clean, efficient interface that minimizes friction and makes ticket submission/reaching support straightforward can reduce customer dissatisfaction and increase support efficiency. Combined with a robust CRM integration, real-time collaboration features, and advanced automation, Pylon’s easy-to-use B2B-focused solution positions it uniquely in a crowded field to meet the high-stakes demands that B2B support requires.

Funding

Pylon has raised 3 rounds of funding since being founded in 2022. Pylon’s first funding came in April 2023 after participating in YCombinator’s W23 batch of startups, receiving the standard $125k SAFE investment. The company’s first large capital injection came a few months later, in July 2023, where they raised their Seed round from many notable names, including General Catalyst leading the round, a follow-on participation from Y Combinator, and participation from new investors including HorizonVC, Comma Capital, and AirAngels. Pylon’s latest funding was their Series A round in August 2024, raising $17M in a round led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from other investors, including names like General Catalyst and Y Combinator, doubling down on their earlier investments. In total, Pylon has raised ~$20.3M in funding.