China-Belarus fund backs Series C for chatbot specialist

Other participants include Gaorong Capital, Sinovation Ventures, Morningside Venture Capital and GGV Capital, all of which are existing backers. The new funding will be used for the company’s overseas expansion, talent recruitment, R&D, and technology upgrades, according to a statement.

Zhuiyi, founded in 2016, is the developer behind YiBot, a customer service chatbot that interprets human ideas and emotions through deep learning technology. YiBot has applications across financial services, the internet, tourism, retail, real estate, and education. Customers include ride-hailing platform Didi Chuxing, online travel website Ctrip, bike-sharing firm Ofo, and smartphone maker Xiaomi.

“Zhuiyi has served more than 300 clients who are engaged in the financial, internet and retail sectors over the past two years.  We are bullish on the company’s rapid pace of rolling out new products - on average five products a year - and believe it will bring disruption to these traditional sectors,” said Bin Yue, a founding partner at Gaorong.

Zhuiyi raised an angel funding round in 2016 from Morningside, and in the same year received a Series A round totaling several million US dollars from Gaorong and Morningside. In 2017, the two firms re-upped for the company’s Series B round of $20.6 million together with GGV, Sinovation and CMB International Capital.

Chinese AI companies saw a surge in investment last year, growing from $1.06 billion in 2017 to $4.8 billion in 2018, according to AVCJ Research. The boom has been attributed to a government push to develop cutting edge technologies as well as increasing difficulties around participating in late-stage rounds in other technology verticals due to high valuations.

• Tweet  
• Facebook  
• LinkedIn  
• Google plus  
• Save this article  
• Send to  

• Topics
• Greater China
• Expansion
• Technology
• China
• Sinovation Ventures
• GGV Capital
• Technology