SleekFlow, a Singapore and Hong Kong-based social commerce platform that has developed a conversational AI suite for customer engagement aimed at Asian markets, announced Wednesday that it has raised an additional $7 million in funding. The funds will be used to further enhance its AI, expand into Southeast Asia and the Middle East, and make inroads into Europe.
The startup's fundraising efforts and growth plans highlight the rapid rise of social commerce, in which sellers use platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, TikTok, and YouTube to market their products and find new customers, while consumers use the same social media platforms to discover and purchase items.
Social commerce is increasing faster than traditional e-commerce. The anticipated market value of social commerce in Asia Pacific alone is expected to approach $894 million by 2028, a 10.6% increase over 2022.
Conversational AI plays a significant role in the evolution of social commerce. Using AI-based chat capabilities, businesses may scale their customer support to work with large numbers of customers while keeping their own processes small. It also adds a programmatic element to the process, with analytics providing greater insight into what works and what does not, as well as when and to whom, allowing them to automate various types of answers to different audiences as needed.
The conversational AI market is expected to grow to $49.9 billion by 2030, a 24.9% increase from $13.2 billion in 2024.
Given the scaling imperative of social commerce and e-commerce in general, it's not surprise that the conversational AI sector is crowded. SleekFlow competes with Messagebird, Respond.io, Gupshup, Omnichat, Trengo, WATI, Unifonic, and Verloop.
SleekFlow's creator and CEO, Henson Tsai, claims that the firm differentiates itself from these and other competitors by offering more streamlined features. These features include omnichannel capabilities (the ability to market to many platforms and interfaces from a single dashboard), marketing automation, and a user-friendly flow builder that allows for the customization of unique chat experiences for each customer. Instant checkout features include in-chat payment connections, collaborative team features, CRM platform connectors with HubSpot and SalesForce, and e-commerce functionality.
The objective is to grow its platform "with offerings underway for fully automated sales and support journeys in voice, calls, and email to deliver unparalleled value to our customers across," Tsai told TechCrunch.
Gao Lei, an AI and big data expert with over two decades of tech leadership experience in Silicon Valley, was recently recruited as the startup's new CTO.
"Since the appointment of our chief technology officer, Gao Lei, a Silicon Valley veteran, we have significantly increased our engineering efforts to be at the forefront of innovative tech and advanced AI," Tsai told the crowd.
SleekFlow is based on a multi-tier SaaS business model, with an optional add-on for users that want to create and manage a WhatsApp Business chat channel. The startup targets sales and marketing teams and is utilized by firms ranging from small to large in the insurance, healthcare, telecom, and retail industries. Its customers include Hong Kong Broadband Networks (HKBN), Delonghi, online furniture firm Cellini, and Malaysian home consumer electrical appliance manufacturer Khind.
SleekFlow is currently functioning in Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brazil, and the United Arab Emirates. Tsai stated that consumer behavior, particularly in Indonesia, which is expected to become one of the world's largest consumer markets by 2030, has shifted significantly toward online purchasing over traditional brick-and-mortar retailers. Tsai said that Saudi Arabia and the UAE have high spending power, making them likely to be significant markets for social commerce.
Atinum Investment, a Seoul-based VC firm, led this latest funding round, with existing backers AEF Greater Bay Area Fund and Transcend Capital Partners also participating, alongside Moses Tsang, a former general partner of Goldman Sachs Group and Chairman of Goldman Sachs Asia LLC. Previously, SleekFlow raised a $8 million Series A led by Tiger Global.
The company declined to comment on its valuation, but in addition to having raised $15 million to date, some other financial metrics to note are that its annual recurring revenue (ARR) has increased to $8-9 million as of June 2024 from around $1-2 million in December 2022. Its staff has also grown to 160 from 60, and customers have increased by more than 5,000 globally.