Conversational commerce platform Yalo has raised $50 million (Rs 363 crore) in a Series C round of financing led by existing venture investor B Capital Group.
The company, which has operations in the United States, Mexico, Brazil and India, will use the capital to deepen its presence in Latin America and Southeast Asia.
The funds will also be used to develop new products including conversational marketing and payments solutions, Yalo said.
“Yalo has become the leading conversational commerce company, revolutionising the way large enterprises engage with their customers and enabling them to transact through chat applications,” Eduardo Saverin, co-founder of B Capital Group and Facebook, said.
The $35 billion industry has the potential to reach $130 billion by 2025 in emerging markets, where it represents 60% of digital commerce and eight out of 10 consumers are exposed to online shopping exclusively via conversational commerce, a BCG report showed.
John Santa Maria, chief executive of Mexican Coke bottler Coca-Cola Femsa, which is a client of Yalo, said, “We now have close to half a million corner stores placing their orders with us through WhatsApp. Conversational commerce has quickly become a fast-growing and important commerce channel for us in several countries, and we’re excited to be working closely with Yalo.”
Founded in 2016, Yalo’s conversational commerce platform offers marketing, helpdesk, and payments solutions. It counts Unilever, Nestle, Coca-Cola and Walmart among its clients.
Along with the latest round of funding, Yalo has raised $75 million so far.
