pi Ventures leads funding round in FrontdeskAI

Moneycontrol News

FrontdeskAI, the leading developer of artificial intelligence (AI) assistants for wellness market, said it has closed an additional $2 million in funding.

This pre-series A round of funding was led by pi Ventures, India's first early stage fund focused on applied artificial intelligence, machine learning, IoT and blockchain.

This takes FrontdeskAI's total seed funding to $4.2 million. The company, which is based in Palo Alto, is headed by NRI entrepreneur Srivatsan Laxman.

The funds will help FrontdeskAI accelerate product development, increase customer acquisition and investigate new vertical markets.

Previous seed rounds include $1.1 million in June 2018, led by Blue Pointe Capital and $1.1 million in November 2018, led by Speciale Invest.

Abishek Surendran of pi Ventures will join the FrontdeskAI board that already includes BluePointe Ventures managing partner, Sandeep Sardana, and Speciale Invest managing partner, Vishesh Rajaram.

FrontdeskAI creates AI assistants specifically for small businesses that rely on appointment-basedproducts and services for their revenue.

The company's current AI assistant portfolio serves the wellness market including the spa, salon and fitness industries.

The wellness market is globally valued at $4.2 trillion and is growing twice as fast as global economic growth.

FrontdeskAI customer acquisition is currently growing 17 percent month on month, subscription revenue is growing 25 percent month on month, and churn is amongst the lowest in the industry at less than 3 percent per month.

FrontdeskAI assistants help manage appointments, class scheduling, rescheduling, all forms of customer and service specific enquiries, and can execute highly targeted and intelligent marketing campaigns.

They are powered by a set of proprietary algorithms, a proprietary database of B2C natural language interactions, and knowledge graphs. Over time, they build a rich source of information about customer requirements, preferences and usage patterns.

By tapping into the FrontdeskAI knowledge graph, the AI assistants are expert and up and running immediately on deployment.

To create human empathy, FrontdeskAI provides a second layer of intelligence comprising human trainers to groom the AI assistant to speak in the style and tone of the customer brand. The AI assistant becomes independent over time building knowledge and experience from all its interactions.

Srivatsan Laxman, CEO, FrontdeskAI, said “We are laser focused on developing affordable and easy-to- use AI assistants for small businesses.

"Our customers report a 30 percent increase in revenue, 20 percent increase in new client registrations, and a significant reduction in class drop-outs. With the additional funding and the partnership with pi Ventures we are now in a position to deepen our IP and competitive barriers to market entry."

Original Source: https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/startup/pi-ventures-leads-funding-round-in-frontdeskai-3671631.html