We are happy to announce that Far Ventures portfolio start-up FinChatBot just raised a R12m seed round from Kalon Venture Partners and Compass Venture Capital.
Founded in 2016 within Far Ventures, FinChatBot has developed a proprietary technology to help financial service providers acquire and retain customers through Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered conversations.
FinChatBot enables its clients to dramatically lower the drop-off rate traditionally experienced by customers who engage with a call center. As of the fundraising round, FinChatBot has about 15 major clients across the insurance and banking industries.
The idea of FinChatBot was born within Far Ventures in April 2016 while the Co-Founders Antoine Paillusseau and Romain Diaz realized the need for financial service providers to adapt their way of engaging with customers to a new generation of tech-savvy consumers. Since then, Far Ventures has invested the first capital in the company and supported CEO Antoine Paillusseau on growing the company and raising further rounds of funding. Antoine Paillusseau today considers the investment as a “huge vote of confidence” in the startup’s vision. “I am extremely excited to learn from and grow with our partners,” he said.
Kalon Venture Partners chief executive officer (CEO) Clive Butkow expressed excitement upon the conclusion of the deal. “As a leading technology venture capital company, we are constantly searching for the best of the best in new and emerging disrupting industries,” he said. “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.”
Fabrice Boullé, partner at Compass Venture Capital, said his company’s investment was as much in the leadership of FinChatBot as it was in the technology: “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.”.
We are truly excited by the conclusion of this round and look forward to seeing FinChatBot grow as a leading Fintech startup born out of the African continent.
