B Capital to support Yalochat's Asia expansion

Other investors include Sierra Ventures, which committed $8 million to the company last year. Following that round, Yalochat launched an office in India. It also has a presence in Brazil, where enterprise customers are the primary target. A similar start-up in India backed by Lightspeed Venture Partners is Yellow Messenger.

Founded in 2015, Yalochat offers sales and customer relations services using conversational artificial intelligence (AI) that works on popular messaging platforms like WhatsApp. The company claims that customized messaging apps created to serve such purposes are usually uninstalled by users, so products should be integrated with popular platforms.

This can boost sales and potentially generate a trove of information on users who are increasingly adopting conversational channels to interact with enterprises. During the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a tenfold increase in message volume on the platform.

Clients have included Coca Cola, Walmart, ICICI Bank, Amazon, Domino’s, and government agencies.

“Over a decade ago, the smart phone revolutionized how we access information and connect with each other and with services around the world. But despite the growth in messaging platforms that offer real-time, contextualized conversation and connectivity, the opportunity to build relevant apps on top of these channels has been largely overlooked outside of companies like WeChat in China,” said Adam Bosworth, a Yalochat board advisor. “Yalochat is the first company to truly recognize the incredible potential of software that marries the value of app-based services with the ease and connectivity of device-based messaging channels.”

Increasingly, conversational AI solutions are the first port-of-call for first-time e-commerce users, stated Rashmi Gopinath, a US-based partner at B Capital, citing a study by the Boston Consulting Group. B Capital plans to leverage its strategic partnership with the consulting firm to introduce the start-up to various enterprise customers around the world, according to a Medium post.

The investment is the Singapore and US-headquartered firm’s first investment in Latin America and was conducted almost entirely using video conferencing methods. Earlier in the year, the GP closed its second fund with $820 million in commitments. It will go to start-ups in India and Southeast Asia that need growth capital.

Other B Capital deals in Asia this year include Indian digital ledger app Khatabook and B2B packaging marketplace Bizongo. The firm also participated in two rounds for Indonesian payments processor Payfazz.

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• Topics
• South Asia
• Southeast Asia
• Expansion
• Technology
• India
• B Capital
• artificial intelligence