Connectly, a leader in conversational artificial intelligence (AI) for businesses, announces a new funding round of R$110 million, a Series B round led by Alibaba, with participation from Unusual Ventures, Volpe Capital, RX Ventures (from Grupo Renner), Falabella Ventures, and Philippos Kourkoulos Latsis. Founded in 2020 in Silicon Valley by veterans from big tech companies such as Facebook, Google, Uber, and even NASA, the company uses proprietary Generative AI models and has been helping retailers worldwide expand their businesses through personalized messages, a service available 24 hours a day.
This Series B investment occurs after a significant year in Connectly's history, which includes its Series A funding in October 2023, marking its entry into the US market. Still in 2023, the company launched its advanced product recommendation assistant, theSofia AI, and as a result, nearly doubled its revenue and staff in the past year. In this context, Brazil emerged as the company's main market, accounting for approximately 40% of its global revenue. Because of this, it was necessary to strengthen the team here: currently, 24% of its employees are Brazilian. In the country, among the main clients are names such as Lojas Renner, Puravida, Daki, and Farmácias São João. By 2025, the expectation is to see its revenue double globally.
Connectly's no-code platform allows companies to create interactive campaigns instantly and use AI to automate two-way conversations at scale, both with potential leads and loyal customers. With this, technology provides tangible results for your clients, such as higher conversion, increased user engagement, improved satisfaction, and loyalty.
"Now more than ever, customers seek personalized interactions with retail and e-commerce brands," explains Stefanos Loukakos, co-founder and CEO of Connectly. "We are working vigorously to bring conversational AI to brands around the world, creating more personalized interactions at scale. We have achieved a lot in the past year, including the launch of product search and recommendation functionality with Sofia AI for e-commerce. Alibaba's support, one of the largest retailers on the planet, is deeply impactful for our potential and will allow us to continue investing in our proprietary models and scaling our business," adds Loukakos.
Alibaba has been seeking to establish partnerships with innovative companies that pave the way in their industries. This was exactly the aspect they observed in Connectly's proposal and performance, due to its AI-driven conversational model. Because of this, Alibaba says it is eager to follow the future journey and the impact of Connectly on brands around the globe.
