SleekFlow, a Singapore- and Hong Kong-based social commerce platform that has built a suite of conversational AI products for customer engagement targeting the Asian market, said on Wednesday it has secured an additional $7 million in funding, which it will use to continue its AI development, deepen its penetration into Southeast Asia and the Middle East, and expand into Europe.
The startup’s funding and growth plans are indicative of the rapid growth of social commerce, where sellers use platforms like Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, TikTok, and YouTube to sell their goods and find new customers, and consumers use those same social media platforms to discover and purchase items.
Social commerce is currently growing faster than traditional e-commerce. In the Asia Pacific region alone, the estimated market value of social commerce is expected to exceed USD 894 million by 2028, growing 10.6% from 2022.
Within it, conversational AI is a big part of how social commerce is evolving. AI-based chat capabilities allow merchants to scale their customer service to engage with a wider audience while streamlining their own operations. Analytics also provide more insight into what works and what doesn’t, when and for whom, and add a programming layer to the process that can automate different types of responses to different audiences accordingly.
The conversational AI industry is expected to reach $49.9 billion by 2030, up 24.9% from $13.2 billion in 2024.
Given the imperative for expanding not only social commerce but also e-commerce in general, it’s perhaps not surprising that the conversational AI space is crowded. SleekFlow’s competitors include Messagebird, Respond.io, Gupshup, Omnichat, Trengo, WATI, Unifonic, and Verloop.
SleekFlow founder and CEO Henson Tsai says the startup differentiates itself from its competitors with its more streamlined features. These include omnichannel capabilities (i.e. marketing across multiple platforms and interfaces from a single dashboard), marketing automation, and a user-friendly flow builder that gives you the flexibility to create unique chat experiences for each customer. Instant payment features include in-chat payment links, collaborative team features, built-in CRM platform integrations with HubSpot and SalesForce, and ecommerce capabilities.
“We’re scaling our platform to deliver unparalleled value to our customers as we move forward with offerings for fully automated sales and support journeys across voice, phone and email,” Tsai told TechCrunch.
The startup recently appointed Gao Lei, an AI and big data veteran with over 20 years of technology leadership in Silicon Valley, as its new CTO.
“Since appointing CTO Gao Lei, a Silicon Valley veteran, we have significantly increased our engineering efforts to be at the forefront of innovative technologies and advanced AI,” Tsai said.
SleekFlow is built on a multi-tier SaaS business model with optional add-ons for customers who want to set up and run a WhatsApp Business messaging channel. The startup is hiring sales and marketing teams and is used by companies ranging from small teams to large enterprises in the insurance, healthcare, telecommunications, and retail sectors. Some of its customers include Hong Kong Broadband Networks (HKBN), Delonghi, online furniture company Cellini, and Malaysian home appliance manufacturer Khind.
SleekFlow currently operates in Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brazil and the United Arab Emirates. Tsai said that consumer behavior in Indonesia, which is expected to be one of the largest consumer markets by 2030, is rapidly shifting from traditional offline stores to online shopping. Tsai added that Saudi Arabia and the UAE have high purchasing power, making these regions likely to be key markets for social commerce.
Atinum Investment, a Seoul-based VC firm, led this latest funding round, with participation from existing backers AEF Greater Bay Area Fund and Transcend Capital Partners, as well as Moses Tsang, former general partner at Goldman Sachs Group and chairman of Goldman Sachs Asia LLC. SleekFlow previously raised an $8 million Series A led by Tiger Global.
The company declined to comment on its valuation, but other notable financial metrics, in addition to the $15 million it has raised so far, include an increase in annual recurring revenue (ARR) from approximately $1 million to $2 million in December 2022 to $8 million to $9 million as of June 2024. Tsai told TechCrunch that the company has also grown from 60 to 160 employees and has more than 5,000 customers worldwide.
