You’ve heard of e-commerce but have you ever known a new tech field called c-commerce?
Conversational commerce is a type of e-commerce that is done through various means of communication, using technology. It can incorporate tech aspects such as speech recognition, and artificial intelligence.
Elloe, a US-based conversational commerceΒ Β (c-commerce) has raised $1 million in pre-seed funding. The startup is focused on Kenya and other emerging markets, with a keen eye to expand into the Asian countries next year.
The funding was led by Philippines Mad Ventures, Inc and other undisclosed investors.
Elloe is an AI-powered, conversational commerce platform which allows SMEs to buy and sell products online across any messaging platform. It was founded by Owen Sakawa, a Cambridge graduate together with entrepreneurs Abhijay Rao and Aaron Madolora.
Conversational commerce allows businesses to sell products in a personalized way through messaging apps by bridging the proximity of the physical world with the convenience of digital commerce.
According to a Gartner report, c-commerce is already a $35 billion market with the potential to reach $130 billion by 2025 in emerging markets.
Messaging is becoming the primary way consumers and businesses communicate. 75% of consumers would want to message a business. But businesses currently lack a digital solution tailored to their business to handle a large volume of conversations and fail to effectively integrate shopping and booking in chat.
βOur technology is platform-agnostic and can be embedded in any messaging app, making it extremely convenient for businesses to be where consumers are,β said Owen.
The subscription service is especially helpful for micro-SMEs who wish to sell their products and services online without having to pay high commissions to middlemen.
Further, the innovation is meant to simplify operations, logistics, payments, and marketing.
Sakawa said that the innovation would help businesses become more customer-centric, by bringing consumers and enterprises together through a smartphone.
The funding will be used to expand Elloe’s Kenyan operations and fuel its growth into the Philippine and Southeast Asian markets in 2023 and beyond.
Elloe was founded in 2022 and works in WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Instagram.
