SleekFlow, a Singapore- and Hong Kong-headquartered social commerce platform that has constructed a conversational AI suite for buyer engagement focused to Asian markets, mentioned Wednesday it had secured an extra $7 million in funding. The cash shall be used to proceed growing its AI, in addition to penetrate deeper into Southeast Asia and the Center East, and make inroads into Europe.
The startup’s fundraise and plans for progress underscore the fast rise of social commerce — the place sellers leverage platforms like Fb, Instagram, WhatsApp, TikTok and YouTube to market their items and discover new clients, and customers use the identical social media platforms to find and purchase issues.
Social commerce is at the moment rising quicker than standard e-commerce. The estimated market worth of social commerce within the Asia Pacific area alone is anticipated to exceed $894 million by 2028, representing a ten.6% progress from 2022.
Inside that, conversational AI is a giant a part of how social commerce has developed. Utilizing AI-based chat performance means sellers can scale their customer support to work with lots of customers whereas nonetheless protecting their very own operations lean. It additionally provides a programmatic layer to the method, with analytics giving them extra perception into what works, and what doesn’t, and when and to whom, and to automate completely different sorts of responses to completely different audiences accordingly.
The conversational AI trade is projected to succeed in $49.9 billion by 2030, up 24.9% from $13.2 billion in 2024.
Given the scaling crucial of not simply social commerce however e-commerce total, it’s maybe unsurprising to listen to that the conversational AI area is a crowded one. SleekFlow’s rivals embrace Messagebird, Reply.io, Gupshup, Omnichat, Trengo, WATI, Unifonic and Verloop.
Henson Tsai, the founder and CEO of SleekFlow, says that the startup units itself aside from these and different rivals by means of extra streamlined options. These options embrace omnichannel capabilities (that’s, advertising and marketing to a couple of platform and interface from a single dashboard), advertising and marketing automation, and a user-friendly stream builder that permits flexibility in creating distinctive chat experiences for every buyer. On the spot checkout capabilities embrace in-chat fee hyperlinks, collaborative crew options, built-in CRM platform integrations with HubSpot and SalesForce, and e-commerce performance.
The plan is to develop its platform “with choices underway for totally automated gross sales and help journeys in voice, calls and electronic mail to ship unparalleled worth to our clients throughout,” Tsai instructed TechCrunch.
The startup additionally just lately appointed a brand new CTO, Gao Lei, an AI and massive knowledge veteran with greater than 20 years of tech management in Silicon Valley.
“For the reason that appointment of our chief know-how officer, Gao Lei, a Silicon Valley veteran, we’ve considerably elevated our engineering efforts to be on the forefront of revolutionary tech and superior AI,” Tsai mentioned.
SleekFlow is constructed on a multi-tier SaaS enterprise mannequin with an elective add-on for patrons who wish to additionally arrange and run a WhatsApp Enterprise messaging channel. The startup courts gross sales and advertising and marketing groups and is utilized by corporations starting from small groups to giant companies throughout the insurance coverage, healthcare, telecom, and retail sectors. Hong Kong Broadband Networks (HKBN), Delonghi, on-line furnishings firm Cellini, and Malaysia’s house client electrical equipment maker Khind are amongst its clients.
SleekFlow is operational right this moment in Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brazil, and the United Arab Emirates. Of these, Tsai mentioned that client habits particularly in Indonesia — which is projected to turn out to be one of many largest client markets by 2030 — has been quickly shifting in direction of on-line purchasing over conventional brick-and-mortar shops. Excessive spending energy in Saudi Arabia and the UAE means these areas are additionally prone to be key markets for social commerce, Tsai added.
Atinum Funding, a Seoul-based VC agency, led this newest funding spherical, with current backers AEF Higher Bay Space Fund and Transcend Capital Companions additionally collaborating, alongside Moses Tsang, a former normal companion of Goldman Sachs Group and Chairman of Goldman Sachs Asia LLC. Beforehand, SleekFlow raised a $8 million Collection A led by Tiger World.
The corporate declined to touch upon its valuation, however along with having raised $15 million to this point, another monetary metrics to notice are that its annual recurring income (ARR) has elevated to $8-9 million as of June 2024 from round $1-2 million in December 2022. Its workers has additionally grown to 160 from 60, and clients have elevated by greater than 5,000 globally, Tsai instructed TechCrunch.
