South African AI chatbot firm FinChatBot, a creator of conversational AI solutions for the financial services industry, has secured £1.2m in new funding as it expands into the UK.
Established in 2016, the firm’s solutions are used by most of the financial service providers in South Africa.
It now services more than 20 top-tier financial service providers including banks and insurers, helping to sell and service financial products with no human intervention.
The new capital comes from Saviu Ventures, a French investment holding company which focuses on African startups; Mauritius-based Compass Venture Capital and leading South African venture capital firm Kalon Venture Partners.
Both Compass Venture Capital and Kalon Venture Partners are solidifying their positions, having previously invested in 2018.
The firm will use the funding primarily to grow its teams in engineering, sales, customer success, project management, business analysis and AI expertise.
The new hires will increase headcount to more than 50 as it expands into the UK, Europe and West Africa, with the opening of three offices in France, UK and Portugal.
Antoine Paillusseau, FinChatBot co-founder and CEO said: “We are grateful for the support of our investors who believe in our vision to become the leader in selling and servicing financial products with the use of conversational AI solutions.
“By implementing our solutions, financial service providers are able to double their conversion rates, reduce operational costs by more than 60%, retain customers better, and gather more data about customers which can be used for product innovation and customer retention.”
Bastien Maucet, partner at Compass Capital, highlights that they were attracted to the strength of the leadership team of FinChatBot.
“Our belief in team FinChatBot has been proven to be right as it continues to help financial service providers acquire and retain customers whilst reducing operating costs – a very strong customer proposition.”