Connectly Raises $20M in Series B Investment, Works to Expand Conversational Commerce Powered by AI

By Alex Passett September 12, 2024

There exist today many shared experiences (and challenges, in tow) across modern marketing campaigns. A huge one, in particular, concerns the limitations of one-way communications channels, à la email and SMS. Though admittedly convenient, methods in this vein don’t often inspire the kinds of meaningful consumer connections that businesses are looking for. (Due largely to what can be perceived as an “impersonal nature” found in routine responses, leading to fewer seized calls-to-action and lower engagement rates, overall.)

This can’t be an end-game solution for businesses, no way; what are now considered old-fashioned ways of communicating — traditionally one-way, less-personalized channels — produce shallow engagement and potentially monotonous interactions. What teams do need to consistently utilize are two-way conversation capabilities so they can actually effectively communicate with real (and actively interested) customers, thus boosting engagement and social feedback, smarter sales and so on.

Enter Connectly.

Founded by Stefanos Loukakos (ex-Director, Head of Messenger & Blockchain at Facebook) and Yandong Liu (ex-CTO of Strava and Engineer at Uber), the launch and appeal of Connectly directly correlates to how businesses can readily make the most of their customer-facing messages in what is undeniably an increasingly complex omnichannel ecosystem. On a mission to get businesses to adopt positive, message-first mindsets via AI-powered experiences (all within “the customer’s thread of choice,” per the company), Connectly devised its code-free platform so teams can speedily onboard and deploy, leading to them better enabling the near-instant creation of interactive, AI-automated marketing campaigns.

We’re talking about real, high-quality connections; especially via Connectly’s Sofia AI and its personalized, data-driven recommendations. “Instant, detailed responses that respect the customer’s time, and empathy at scale so they really feel understood,” Connectly wrote.

And as the company continues its mission, Connectly made news yesterday with the announcement of its $20 million Series B investment. This was led by Alibaba, with additional participation from Unusual Ventures, Volpe Capital, RX Ventures, Falabella Ventures and Philippos Kourkoulos Latsis

Notably, this follows a Series A investment from October of 2023, which marked Connectly’s entrance into the U.S. market with $7.85 million towards more engaging, AI-powered conversational commerce.

“Now more than ever, customers are looking for personalized interactions with retail and e-commerce brands,” Loukakos explained. “At Connectly, we are vigorously working to bring AI-powered conversational commerce to brands around the world to create more personalized interactions at scale. We have already accomplished so much in the past year, including launching a new AI Search for businesses and Sofia AI. Support from Alibaba, one of the largest retailers on the planet, is profoundly impactful to our potential, and it will enable us to continue to invest in our proprietary AI models and scale our business.”