Charles Raises €6.4m In Seed Funding To Bring 'conversational Commerce' To WhatsApp

According to the techcrunch website, Charles, a startup based in Berlin, Germany, has just raised 6.4 million euros in seed funding led by Accel and HV Capital to further develop its "conversational commerce" SaaS service that can be carried out on chat applications such as WhatsApp. .

Charles' service connects the chat application's API interface with the store's CRM system, putting human chat sales agents at the center and providing support from chatbots and AI.

(Charles official website demo page)

Therefore, sellers sell products and services through WhatsApp and other chat applications, helping businesses leverage their existing channels to meet customers while bridging the gap between sales inquiries and actual conversions, thereby increasing store conversion rates, customer loyalty and Sales revenue.

Weissbeck, one of the founders of Charles, believes that traffic and conversions will exponentially shift from offline physical stores and shopping terminals to communication apps, so conversational commerce is expected to become the third pillar of commerce. And while connecting existing business channels, it fully taps the potential of personalization through the unique identifier of the customer's phone number.

Accel partner Luca Bocchio said conversational commerce is becoming "an important sales channel for brands" and will also reshape the way brands interact with consumers. He also noted that this paves the way for potential new tools, and Charles could be one of them.

However, Charles also faces some competitors that provide related services. Weissbeck said that when communicating with potential customers, they found that existing customer service tools such as Zendesk have begun to add chat applications as additional channels, focusing on quickly answering customers. Questions, provide better customer service, not sales.

On the contrary, Charles Company believes that their functions are based on the logic of "feeding", looking at the problem from the customer's perspective, and treating the interaction with customers as an ongoing dialogue and end-to-end relationship.

Charles' company's charging model is very simple. The monthly service fee paid by the seller covers the cost, and then profits are obtained through the seller's transaction conversion rate in conversational commerce. “We take a small percentage of the seller’s net sales to ensure we both get incentives,” Weissbeck said.