Founded in 2016 in Cape Town by French-born Antoine Paillusseau and co-founder Romain Diaz, FinChatBot is a South African startup developing chatbots to help financial service providers and insurance companies acquire and retain customers with AI-powered conversations.
After an initial three months of market research conducted by the team of Cape Town based startup incubator Far Ventures, the company was founded as a solution to agents, extended query, claims and sales processes, and limited call windows. In January 2017, FinChatBot announced the completion of its first round of seed-funding to the value of ZAR 1.6 million.
FinChatBot develops chatbots to help financial service providers acquire & retain customers thanks to AI-powered conversations
FinChatBot’s advanced chatbot, Holly, helps companies interact with potential and existing clients by providing automated information to customers. Paillusseau believes the chatbot is able to provide “detailed quotes to users in a way that is more convenient than a call center agent”.
“Using chatbots, financial services providers are able to increase their conversion rates, reduce operational costs and gather more data about customers,” says Paillusseau.
The company sees messaging apps as the new platforms, and bots as the new apps. Bots’ advantage is that they allow consumers to access information or perform tasks without loading a dedicated app. With connected-consumers spending most of their time on messaging apps, FinChatBot embeds financial services in these favorite apps for ease of access.
The company aspires to deliver enhanced customer experiences and higher conversion rates. With a saturated lead generation space in finance and insurance, the company hopes to convert potential clients into customers through their unique offering.
FinChatBot is a gold member of AlphaCode, a club for fintech entrepreneurs and the fintech investment arm of Rand Merchant Investment Holdings.
The company has opened offices in Cape Town, Johannesburg, Paris and has a reseller arrangement in Morocco. Now, it plans to expand its reach to Kenya and France.
