This post was originally published on this site
SleekFlow is a Singapore and Hong Kong based social commerce platform which has developed a conversational AI suite to engage customers in Asian markets. The company announced Wednesday that it had received an additional $7 million funding. The money will go towards developing the AI and expanding into Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Europe.
The startup’s plans for growth and fundraise highlight the rapid rise of social business, where sellers use platforms like Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp to find new customers and market their products, while consumers use these same platforms to discover, buy and purchase things.
Social commerce is growing faster than conventional e-commerce . The estimated market value for social commerce in Asia Pacific alone is expected exceed $894 millions by 2028. This represents a 10.6% increase from 2022.
Conversational AI has played a major role in the development of social commerce. AI-based chat allows sellers to scale their customer service and work with large numbers of users, while keeping their own operations lean. It adds an additional programmatic layer, with analytics providing more insight into what works and what doesn’t, when and to whom and automate different types of responses accordingly.
The conversational AI industry will reach $49,9 billion by 2030. This is up 24.9% compared to $13.2 billion in 2024 .
It’s not surprising that the conversational AI market is crowded, given the scale-up imperative of social commerce and ecommerce in general. SleekFlow competes with Messagebird.com, Respond.io. Gupshup. Omnichat. Trengo. WATI. Unifonic. Verloop.
Henson Tsai is the founder and CEO at SleekFlow. He says the startup stands out from its competitors by offering more streamlined features. These features include omnichannel (that is, marketing across multiple platforms and interfaces from a single dashboard), a user-friendly chat flow builder, and marketing automation. Instant checkout features include in-chat payments, collaborative team features and built-in CRM platform Integrations with HubSpot, SalesForce and e-commerce capabilities.
Tsai, a TechCrunch reporter, said that the plan is to expand the platform with “offerings underway for fully automated voice, call and email sales and support journeys to deliver unparalleled value to customers across”, Tsai said.
The startup has also recently appointed Gao Lei as its new CTO. She is an AI and Big Data veteran with over two decades of experience in Silicon Valley.
“Since we appointed Gao Lei as our chief technology officer – a Silicon Valley veteran – we have significantly increased the engineering efforts that are required to be at forefront of innovative tech, and advanced AI,” Tsai stated.
SleekFlow’s business model is based on a multitier SaaS, with an optional addon for customers that want to set up and manage a WhatsApp Business messaging service. The startup is used by small teams as well as large companies in the insurance, healthcare and telecom sectors. Hong Kong Broadband Networks, Delonghi, the online furniture company Cellini and Malaysia’s home electrical appliance maker Khind, are among its clients.
SleekFlow operates in Singapore, Hong Kong Malaysia, Indonesia Brazil and the United Arab Emirates. Tsai stated that the consumer behavior, especially in Indonesia – which is projected to be one of the biggest consumer markets by 2030 – has rapidly shifted towards online shopping. Tsai said that Saudi Arabia and the UAE have high spending power, which means they are likely to be important markets for social commerce.
Atinum Investments, a Seoul VC firm, led the latest funding round. Existing backers AEF Greater Bay Area Fund, Transcend Capital Partners, and Moses Tsang, former general partner and chairman of Goldman Sachs Asia LLC, also participated. SleekFlow had previously raised an $8 million Series A led Tiger Global.
The company declined comment on its valuation. However, in addition to raising $15 million, other financial metrics are worth noting, including the fact that its annual revenue recurring (ARR) increased to $8-9 millions by June 2024, from around $1-2million in December 2022. Tsai, a TechCrunch reporter, said that the company’s staff has grown from 60 to 160 and its customers have increased by 5,000.
