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Chatbots and other sort of AI factor may feel like a dime a dozen these days . But the trueness is that , for both businesses and consumers , some may be immeasurably more useful ( and perhapsless dystopian ) than others .
Today , a startup that ’s build a successful byplay around that concept is announcing a major outgrowth round to extend its business . Manychat , which provides a shaft for managing and automatise conversations and betrothal across multiple messaging TV channel , has picked up $ 140 million in a Series B beat leave by Summit Partners .
The financial support is coming on the heels of firm ontogenesis for the startup . Manychat today has around 1.5 million customers across 170 nation , with its client listing include the the likes of of Nike , the New York Times , and Yahoo , as well as individual creators and much smaller kit .
Manychat ’s CEO and co - founding father , Mike Yan , said the company post “ billion ” of messages each year on behalf of these users across TikTok , Instagram , WhatsApp , Messenger , and other chat platform . The plan is to expend the fresh cash both to endue in R&D — in particular , to wreak more AI to the platform — and boost the company ’s cut-rate sale , marketing , and support globally .
Notably for a startup these day , Manychat is mostly profitable — as Yan describes it , the fellowship “ always operate on the sharpness of being kind of break even . ”
Since launch in 2015 , the inauguration had only raised around $ 23 million until now , mostly froman $ 18 million Series A roundin 2019 .
Manychat did not break who the other investor are in this Series B troll beyond Summit . The caller is not give out a valuation , either , but it ’s likely to be substantially high than the small $ 58 million post - money cost shred PitchBook detailed for the Series A.
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From Telegram to Instagram
Manychat ’s trajectory mirrors both the rise of smartphone - found message apps over the last decennium and the arise chance around putz that help business leverage that medium in a better way .
In 2015 , the e-mail inbox was take off to tip into becoming a spam - oppressed , tired , and overuse medium for businesses looking to practice it for marketing .
Yan at the time was fresh off the back of a failed social app , and he himself was a Telegram user , one of a develop universe of consumers using message apps for basic communication theory . When Telegram open up its genus Apis , the lightbulb of inspiration fail off for him and his atomic number 27 - father Anton Gorin .
“ Telegram was in reality one of the first westerly messaging apps to open up its APIs , ” he withdraw . “ As user of Telegram ourselves , we get a line a percipient business to be done . ” Companies were using email to connect to users , he said , but that was not where substance abuser were spending time . “ They should be using message apps actually to connect with customers ; that ’s where the new waving of communicating is happening . That ’s where the new consumer is . ”
So he and Gorin built the first iteration of Manychat as a tool for creating chats for job on Telegram . It picked up enough adhesive friction to get them into the 500 Startups throttle valve .
thing start to take off when Facebook opened up its APIs for Messenger . By the time Manychat arouse its Series A in 2019 , it was already reaching 350 million users on the political program monthly , with billions of messages and an enviable open pace of 80 % .
Additional APIs opening up across other Meta - owned platforms as well as TikTok have encourage that growing . Users can still market on Telegram , too , Yan said , although these days that is just a diminished percentage of its traffic . Instagram is by far the most set-aside and active political program for the company today , Yan said .
Anchoring its product around further further actions , Yan said , is what sets his company apart from most chatbots on the market decently now , include most reproductive AI chatbots .
Sophia Popova , the Summit married person who led the investment ( and is joining the board of the startup ) , believe that Manychat ’s approach of build an engagement layer seduce it a solid bet for the next wave of bodily function on messaging platform .
“ Our thesis hinges on a not bad proportionality of commerce dollar bill going through societal message apps , ” she tell in an interview . “ You call for to be always on and employ 24/7 . That is what customers bear , and Manychat is hitting the nail on the head . ” In contrast , she said , when considering the DNA of the AI chatbots , “ very few of them are geared towards personalise conversation in a room that drives conversion to tax revenue . ”
If you want a help desk chatbot , there are myriad tools out there , but very few that are engage to sell or elicit other reaction from substance abuser in the elbow room that Manychat has done , she added .
Yet , given the footstep of development — and AI startup ’ motivation to generate tax income to offset Brobdingnagian cash suntan — this gap may not be present for long . That ’s one grounds Manychat is work to build in more AI features to better its offering .
