Quebec-based startup raised a Series A to extend Leadership in Open-Source Chatbot PlatformsCORRECTION…by Botpress
Third paragraph, third sentence of the release should read: Decibel Partners led the round, with participation from Inovia Capital, Panache Ventures, Real Ventures, Hike Ventures, Fonds Innovexport, and Overtime VC.
The updated release reads:
BOTPRESS CLOSES 2021 WITH STRONG COMPANY, PRODUCT, AND FUNDING GROWTH
Quebec-based startup raised a Series A to extend Leadership in Open-Source Chatbot Platforms
Botpress, the leading open-source chatbot platform, today announced key metrics and milestones reached in 2021, including product expansion, team growth, and the close of a key Series A funding, laying the ground for more growth for the years to come.
“Chatbots and conversational AI are critical to great customer experiences, and we know that great customer experiences need to be built, not bought off the shelf,” said Sylvain Perron, Botpress CEO & co-founder. “In 2021, Botpress established itself as the best platform for building a great chatbot. In 2022, we’re going to extend that leadership, making it easier to leverage the newest NLP technologies and investing heavily in product–making chatbots smarter, easier to build and faster to deploy.”
Funding
In April 2021, Botpress announced that it had raised CA $20 million (US $15 million) in capital funding for its Series A round — the largest Series A funding round ever announced by a Quebec City based startup. Botpress indicated that it planned to use the funds to triple its team and enhance its product innovation. Decibel Partners led the round, with participation from Inovia Capital, Panache Ventures, Real Ventures, Hike Ventures, Fonds Innovexport, and Overtime VC. Jon Sakoda, partner at Decibel, joined the Botpress board of directors.
“The Botpress platform provides a unique and powerful toolset to the developer building a chatbot,” said Sakoda. “Chatbots are exploding right now, and usage will only grow higher going forward. Everyone from community members to SMBs to large enterprises will be building with Botpress.”
Evan Kaplan (InfluxDB), Francois Dufour (Algolia, Twilio), Jeff Yoshimura (Snyk, Elastic), and Marjorie Janiewicz (HackerOne, MongoDB) were also introduced as Botpress advisors in 2021.
Product
As the leading open-source developer-first chatbot platform, Botpress has garnered more than 9500 Github stars and doubled product usage in 2021, as compared with the prior year. Botpress has users at thousands of companies, with approximately 70% of those users working in mid-market or SMB organizations. Botpress chatbots are in use in more than 20 countries, and Botpress has one-click support for 12 languages, including Arabic, Portuguese, Japanese, and French.
Botpress has an average NPS score of 50 – estimated to be at the 80th percentile of net promoter scores for software, a notable achievement for a company founded in just 2017. Botpress sees high levels of developer satisfaction and commitment to its software.
Botpress is loved by developers working at every size company–from startup to enterprise–and is used to provide great conversational experiences at leading companies such as Comcast, Daimler, Home Depot, Metlife, and others.
“Botpress gives us everything we need in one API-powered tool, said Thomas Gouritin, Co-Founder of ASISPO, the AI-powered patient management platform. “From intent creation, to personalization, contextualization, and APIs to customize the experience, Botpress is a complete platform.”
Botpress Team
Botpress invested in their team in 2021, growing from 20 to more than 50 employees globally. Hiring was particularly focused in product and engineering, supporting new features in the Botpress platform to help developers in building better chatbots.
The conversational AI startup also added key leaders to its executive team with the hires of Jean-François Martin as Head of Product, Conversational AI, and Kasey Byrne as Vice President of Marketing & Growth.
Jean-François has deep experience in product management and NLP, and was previously Head of Products, AI Cloud at Mnubo and Senior Director of Product Management at Aspen before joining Botpress. Kasey has spent much of her career working with early stage technology companies, most recently leading marketing at Postman, Cardlytics and Rasa.
“Botpress is thrilled to have these two senior executives join the company,” said Sylvain Perron, CEO & co-founder. “They bring deep experience in product-led growth, conversational AI, NLP, and scaling technologies – all key to helping Botpress scale our footprint in this market.”
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