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Most consumers interact with e - commerce brands through societal media , text edition and electronic mail . Brands reach out with promotion and price reduction . But the engagement and take rate tend to be low;accordingto Gartner , brands risk losing 38 % of customer due to poor selling personalization travail .
Stefanos Loukakos , the former head of Meta’sbusiness - focused Messengerdivision , think the result might dwell in algorithm to drive marketing at the correct time — and to the correct person .
To test this theory , Loukakos foundedConnectly , which host a program for business enterprise to create message campaigns and automate conversation with customers across message apps . Connectly today denote that it raised $ 7.85 million in a Series A daily round head by Volpe Capital with participation from RX Ventures and DST Global managing partner Saurabh Gupta , bringing the startup ’s sum raised to $ 17.25 million .
Loukakos launched Connectly in 2020 alongside Yandong Liu , antecedently a lead technologist on Uber ’s motorcar see team , whom he touch through a mutual friend in the founding father community .
Using Connectly , brands can create campaign and chatbots to automate text substance conversations with customers . Loukakos pitches it as a way for steel to capture customers that ’d otherwise potentially light through the cracks .
“ Connectly can tailor suggestions to ensure customer come upon product they ’ll jazz , as well as help company advance a deep understanding of their customers , ” Loukakos said . “ While traditional mechanization participant focalise on one - way subject matter , Connectly narrow down in conversations with current and potential buyers — enabling outbound and inward solutions . ”
For illustration , if a customer desert a cart on a brand ’s website , Connectly can detect this and then send them a message ask why they did n’t make a purchase , Loukakos says . If the customer is “ high value , ” Connectly can proffer to unfold them a discount or lower - cost shipping .
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On the back end , Connectly ’s AI attempts to fancy out which products client are most interested in and build up consultation segments , which it display to brands in a unified dashboard .
“ Connectly provides a real - meter battery-acid of glass that connects the dots between message and sales , ” Loukakos said . “ Connectly ’s AI uses natural lyric processing to understand what customers are saying and give them accurate recommendation on how to better … [ it also ] uses machine learning to interpret and prioritize inbound subject matter , tagging in the appropriate agents and job so they know what actions to take . ”
The wager are gamey to get it right . According to one recentsurveyof around 1,200 SMS user , nearly one-half cover being “ nark ” by schoolbook message marketing , with 28 % enunciate that they ’d abandoned at least one brand out of vexation .
Connectly appears to have had some success , though , with a customer base vibrate around 200 trade name and one-year recurring tax revenue just eclipsing $ 3.5 million .
Despite competition from officeholder like Twilio and startups such as MessageBird and Attentive , the companionship is well - positioned for growth , Loukakos aver , with plans to grow headcount from 35 employee to come together to 40 by year - end 2023 .
update on 3/7 at 5:42 p.m. Eastern : DST Global did n’t invest in Connectly as originally pen — only DST planetary managing partner Saurabh Gupta . We ’ve made the fudge factor and regret the computer error .
