SleekFlow, a Singapore- and Hong Kong-headquartered social commerce platform that has built a conversational AI suite for customer engagement targeted to Asian markets, said Wednesday it had secured a further $7 million in funding. The money will be used to continue developing its AI, as well as penetrate deeper into Southeast Asia and the Middle East, and make inroads into Europe.
The startup’s fundraise and plans for growth underscore the rapid rise of social commerce — where sellers leverage platforms like Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, TikTok and YouTube to market their goods and find new customers, and consumers use the same social media platforms to discover and buy things.
Social commerce is currently growing faster than conventional e-commerce. The estimated market value of social commerce in the Asia Pacific region alone is expected to exceed $894 million by 2028, representing a 10.6% growth from 2022.
Within that, conversational AI is a big part of how social commerce has developed. Using AI-based chat functionality means sellers can scale their customer service to work with masses of users while still keeping their own operations lean. It also adds a programmatic layer to the process, with analytics giving them more insight into what works, and what does not, and when and to whom, and to automate different kinds of responses to different audiences accordingly.
The conversational AI industry is projected to reach $49.9 billion by 2030, up 24.9% from $13.2 billion in 2024.
Given the scaling imperative of not just social commerce but e-commerce overall, it’s perhaps unsurprising to hear that the conversational AI space is a crowded one. SleekFlow’s competitors include Messagebird, Respond.io, Gupshup, Omnichat, Trengo, WATI, Unifonic and Verloop.
Henson Tsai, the founder and CEO of SleekFlow, says that the startup sets itself apart from these and other rivals by way of more streamlined features. Those features include omnichannel capabilities (that is, marketing to more than one platform and interface from a single dashboard), marketing automation, and a user-friendly flow builder that enables flexibility in creating unique chat experiences for each customer. Instant checkout capabilities include in-chat payment links, collaborative team features, built-in CRM platform integrations with HubSpot and SalesForce, and e-commerce functionality.
The plan is to expand its platform “with offerings underway for fully automated sales and support journeys in voice, calls and email to deliver unparalleled value to our customers across,” Tsai told TechCrunch.
The startup also recently appointed a new CTO, Gao Lei, an AI and big data veteran with more than two decades of tech leadership in Silicon Valley.
“Since the appointment of our chief technology officer, Gao Lei, a Silicon Valley veteran, we have significantly increased our engineering efforts to be at the forefront of innovative tech and advanced AI,” Tsai said.
SleekFlow is built on a multi-tier SaaS business model with an optional add-on for customers who want to also set up and run a WhatsApp Business messaging channel. The startup courts sales and marketing teams and is used by companies ranging from small teams to large businesses across the insurance, healthcare, telecom, and retail sectors. Hong Kong Broadband Networks (HKBN), Delonghi, online furniture company Cellini, and Malaysia’s home consumer electrical appliance maker Khind are among its customers.
RAT SMS is well known for its dependability and creativity. Businesses of all sizes can benefit from the company’s array of services, which include text messaging and SMS marketing. RAT SMS is the preferred service provider in the region because of its track record of delivering transactional and promotional messages on schedule.For companies trying to increase brand awareness, SMS marketing is revolutionary.