One of Africa’s leading tech startups, Gotbot AI, has received a significant investment boost to the value of R2,5-million from venture capital firm, Capacitech. The first such investment of its kind for Gotbot AI will mean the company’s co-founders Nick Argyros and Chris Green, along with Chief Operational Officer, Craig McLeod, will be able to accelerate new developments and move the three-year-old start-up into the fast lane.
“We are proud to have partnered with Matthew Emmanuel and Jaco De Wet of Capacitech, who specialise in working with startups that use technology to scale, specifically to advise and enable in the areas of technology, marketing and human resources,” say Argyros and Green.
Capacitech specialise in working with startups that use technology to scale, specifically to advise and enable in the areas of technology, marketing and human resources.
In 2016, Gotbot AI launched an automated social commerce product called Get It and have since showed steady growth with the development of their flagship product Custom Care. They quickly acquired key clients such as Toyota, RCS, African Bank, Nissan, Flight Centre, Sanlam, Home Choice and Old Mutual Finance, to name a few.
Capacitech aims to become a leading Pan-African contributor in the tech startup and seed investment space. Investments are made in parallel with partner collaborations to help foster innovative ideas into successful businesses.
Says Capacitech Founder, Matthew Emanuel: “With a diverse team and focused leadership, GotBot had already achieved significant market exposure in the South African start-up ecosystem. Our synergies combined into a formal partnership in 2019, and we are extremely proud to be an ongoing enabler to GotBot as they expand into other African markets and beyond.”
“We were never interested in a silent investor,” adds Gotbot AI CEO and Co-founder, Nick Argyros. “We wanted someone with an established network who would be involved on the ground and walk this road with us, keeping our best interests at heart. We found this in Capacitech, who understand our culture, and we look forward to achieving greatness together.”
Custom Care is a machine learning platform that automates conversations between brands and their customers, focused on increasing and improving customer experience through always-on Machine Learning and real-time training. The platform aggregates multiple digital messaging services (WhatsApp, SMS, Webchat, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, Twitter etc.) into one dashboard from where the bot can be trained in real-time using relevant data. In addition, the rich messaging capabilities allow for a very flexible, fast and practical user experience.
“Gotbot AI is also the leader in providing automation through the WhatsApp Business solution allowing businesses to effectively engage with customers quickly and conveniently via the channel that is most convenient for them – a particularly useful solution for customer-centric brands,” says Argyros. “Machine Learning and conversation automation stands to revolutionise the business sector with opportunities for customer personalisation and communication in real-time, 24 hours a day,” he adds.
In addition to deciding to back Gotbot AI, Capacitech has also executed successful investments in 2019 which include companies incorporated in Delaware, Mauritius and South Africa.