When Maja Schaefer raised seed money for her AI chatbot startup Zowie, she contacted a local venture capital firm, Inovo.
“We can speak in Polish, it’s casual,” he told Insider.
But the jump to lift Zowie’s A-series lap “much harder”.
Zowie just made $14 million as part of a deal led by generation investment giant Tiger Global. The startup, which counts among its consumers L’Oréal and Avon, has developed a chatbot for e-commerce sites that targets visitor service inquiries in sales. .
This comes less than six months after the closing of a $5 million investment in January. This is also in line with Tiger’s resolution to back more initial budget after the New York hedge fund suffered $17 billion in losses due to the big technology sale. .
Zowie’s bot can stumble and automate answers to repetitive questions, such as prestige updates about package deliveries to lessen agent workload. The startup says it may also stumble upon the intention to acquire from site visitors and link consumers to actual staff.
“Given the expansion of the e-commerce vertical and the increase in customer spending globally, Zowie is uniquely located to continue to succeed in more e-commerce customers and grow the business globally,” said John Curtius, partner at Tiger Global.
The Polish company integrates with companies like e-commerce marketplace Shopify and marketing automation platform Klaviyo, and charges businesses for every package of automated interactions they purchase.
The Series A circular was also subsidized through the Munich-based VC 10x Founders network, whose founding investors invested in corporations such as delivery giant DeliveryHero and mobility company Tier. Google’s AI investment arm, which also co-invested in Zowie’s $5 million circular in January.
Darian Shirazi, general spouse of Gradient Ventures, cited the “incredibly giant market for Zowie’s solution” as a key element in making an investment in the startup. visitor to Zowie’s products and services,” he added.
It was Gradient’s investors who established the link with Tiger Global.
Zowie will use the new capital to boost its expansion in the U. S. In the U. S. , where most of its visitor base is located.
“Having U. S. investors is valuable because we’re operating there and they’re helping us rent and interview the right people,” Schaefer said.
“It’s being close to the market and perceiving cultural differences, consumers and the hiring market. I can propose it to all European founders: if the US market is not the only one. The U. S. is ready to marry an American investor. “