South African Financial Services chatbot providers, FinChatBot (FCB) which develops chatbots to help financial service providers acquire and retain customers through Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered conversations has raised an undisclosed round of funding from venture capital firm Kalon Venture Partners and Mauritius-based VC Compass.
FinChatBot will utilize the investment to continue their rapid growth and expand their impressive client pipeline. The firm identified the opportunity to use chatbots to meet the expectations of customers globally for services that are available 24/7 compared to call centers.
“By implementing our chatbots, financial services providers are able to increase their conversion rates, reduce operational costs and gather more data about customers which can be used for product innovation and customer retention,” said Antoine Paillusseau, FinChatBot co-founder & CEO. “The investment is a huge vote of confidence in our vision for FinChatBot and I am extremely excited to learn from and grow with our partners.”
Founded in 2016 by Antoine Paillusseau and Romain Diaz, FinChatBot has developed and services chatbot experiences for more than 10 top tiers insurers & banks in South Africa. The firm develops chat bots to help financial service providers acquire and retain customers via AI-powered conversations. With FinChatBot, financial businesses can now engage in real time with their audience through their preferred communication channel.
Using chat bots, UX and personalisation, the firm is helping financial service providers save costs incurred on call centres which are becoming increasingly saturated and expensive. With only one a speaker and automated customer support, staff can concentrate on more important tasks leading to savings in time and money.
Fabrice Boullé, Partner at Compass Capital, highlights that their investment is as much in the leadership of FinChatBot as it is in the technology. Fabrice observed that “FinChatBot’s business model, based on an unmatched expertise in creating chatbots for the financial services industry, struck us as ahead of the regional competition. But in the end, our investment decision was mainly motivated by our trust in Antoine’s capacity to lead FinChatBot to the top, as well as our appreciation for his straightforward personality and transparency.”
Clive Butkow, Kalon CEO, expressed excitement about the conclusion of this deal. “As a leading technology venture capital company, we are constantly searching for the best of the best in new and emerging technologies disrupting industries. Chatbots are undeniably one of the fastest growing customer service industries, disrupting a traditionally frustrating customer experience. We identified FinChatBot as one of the leaders of this new industry, not only in the financial services industry but the chatbot eco-system as a whole.”
The investment amount and valuation was not disclosed.