Conversational commerce platform Yalo has announced its latest Series C round of funding.
The Yalo platform provides businesses with ways to communication directly with customers through messaging apps such as WhatsApp, with Yalo counting among its customers the likes of Unilever, Nestle, Coca-Cola and Walmart.
“We’ve seen significant sales uplift since initiating our conversational commerce partnership with Yalo,” said John Santa Maria, CEO of Coca Cola Femsa. “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.”
Since being founded in 2015, the San Francsico, California-based company has raised $75mn across three funding rounds. Its latest Series C, announced yesterday, was worth $50mn and was led by B Capital Group.
“Yalo has become the leading conversational commerce company, revolutionizing the way large enterprises engage with their customers and enabling them to transact through chat applications. We have been impressed with their execution and are very pleased to expand our relationship with them by leading their Series C round.” Said Eduardo Saverin, co-founder of B Capital Group.
Meeting Customers Where They Already Are
The company’s operations are based in the United States, Mexico, Brazil and India, with Yalo supporting companies in Latin America with a combined user base of 350 million. Yalo said it would use the funding to expand further into Latin America and Southeast Asia, as well as develop new products including a conversational marketing solution.
Messaging apps such as WhatsApp are extremely popular in South America, with 93% of Brazilians regularly using the app, for instance. Yalo duly caters to that market, offering businesses a way of accessing customers on the platforms they use most.
“We are honoured to help businesses thrive and become more customer-centric through conversational commerce,” said Javier Mata, founder and chief executive officer of Yalo. “For a long time enterprise digital transformation has been synonymous with complexity; not anymore. Conversational commerce is a simple technology solution that enables brands to meet end-users where they already are — in their favourite mobile communication channels. We will use this round of financing to fund the development of new conversational commerce products and add further value for our global customers by enabling them to retain their customer relationships and compete with e-commerce giants.”
