Automat Technologies Inc. has announced the closing of US $8.3 million Series A round led by new investor the Brandtech group You & Mr Jones. Other investors include new investors Comcast Ventures and Omidyar Technology Ventures, and existing investors Relay Ventures, Real Ventures, and USAA.
The financing closed in May and with the latest funding round brings total investment to US $11 million. Founded in January 2016, Automat secured a seed round led by Relay Ventures in February 2016.
Automat is helping companies use AI to talk to their customers, fans, and followers, to understand and serve them better. Conversational Marketing using AI is enabling marketers to achieve their dream of having personalized one-on-one conversations with their customers, learn about them, and build ongoing bi-directional relationships.
A large portion of the new funding will be used to support and expand the company’s engineering, research, and product teams to accelerate the development of additional features delivering the most complete Conversational Marketing Cloud platform. Automat also plans to allocate funding towards further business development, sales, and marketing efforts.
“The caliber of investors in this latest funding round, along with our recent customer announcements with L’Oreal and National Bank of Canada, all point to the growing momentum of Conversational Marketing among leading brands,” said Andy Mauro, CEO of Automat. “We see a real convergence around brandtech, media and e-commerce and, with You & Mr Jones, Comcast Ventures, and Omidyar Technology Ventures, we have very strategic partners to help us realize our vision of letting brands build personalized one-on-one conversational experiences for their customers, fans, and followers.”
“We’re building a technology group that can help brands deliver their marketing much more effectively and we’re clearly not alone in believing that AI and Conversational Marketing are going to be game-changers in the world of business. But as ever, execution is what counts. That’s the thing that’s been very impressive about Andy and the Automat team since our initial seed investment. They are very tangibly delivering on the promise,” said David Jones, Founder of You & Mr Jones and former Havas global CEO. “Automat has the team, vision, and technology needed to make Conversational Marketing a widespread reality and help brands get the greatest return on investment from it.”
“We believe Conversational Marketing using real AI will be critical for brands in the future,” said Amy Banse, Managing Director and Head of Funds for Comcast Ventures. “Automat has emerged as a leader in that important new category. We look forward to supporting this talented team and helping them grow and scale.”
photo credit: Automat