Netherlands-based Neople has raised €6M for its chatbot customer service ‘assistants’. The company will direct the funding towards international expansion and build an AI-training centre in Berlin.
Clients which integrate ‘neoples’ into their software include over over 100 Dutch and German e-commerce businesses.
AI is not widely used in support roles yet, because it often delivers incomplete, incorrect, or poorly toned responses. Neople will focus on accuracy and coherence of responses to queries going forward and call their aspiration of a fluent and sensical chatbot ‘Collegial AI.’
Newion and Simon Capital led the round.
Co-founder and CEO Hans de Penning explained: “We are on the verge of a shift to a new way of working with technology. Soon, AI colleagues with the right soft skills will automate all repetitive and time-consuming tasks exactly as instructed. This future collaboration is what we call ‘Collegial AI.’
“Customer support teams are often the bottleneck of an e-commerce business, dealing with numerous cases, including those from annoyed or even rude customers. Collegial AI makes their jobs more enjoyable and allows them to focus on the edge cases. Thanks to the investment, we’re launching an AI training center to train Neople to reply autonomously. We are also receiving positive signals from businesses outside the Netherlands. It’s about time we expand Neople’s presence globally.”
Dorus Olgers, Principal at Newion, explains: “We are impressed by Neople’s humanised approach on AI, driven by deep vertical understanding of the markets they serve. This has resulted in a product their customers love, which has disrupted their traditional approach on customer support.”
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