South African artificial intelligence (AI) startup GotBot has raised a ZAR2.5 million (US$171,000) funding round from venture capital firm CapaciTech to accelerate new developments and expansion plans.

Founded in 2016 by Nick Argyros and Chris Green, GotBot is a social commerce and customer experience solution that enables clients to easily communicate with customers, through Facebook Messenger, Twitter, WeChat, Skype, SMS, and web chat conversations.

Clients include Toyota, RCS, African Bank, Nissan, Flight Centre, Sanlam, Home Choice and Old Mutual Finance, and the startup has now secured funding from CapaciTech to speed its growth.

“The funding will be used to bolster our development and operations teams, in order to accelerate the build of new functions and features for our platform,” Argyros told Disrupt Africa.

“We are also integrating our system into third party CRM, ERP and telephony systems, which is exciting.”

CapaciTech investments are made in parallel with partner collaborations to help foster innovative ideas into successful businesses, the firm’s co-founder Matthew Emmanuel said.

“With a diverse team and focused leadership, GotBot had already achieved significant market exposure in the South African startup ecosystem. Our synergies combined into a formal partnership in 2019, and we are extremely proud to be an ongoing enabler to GotBot as they expand into other African markets and beyond,” he said.

Argyros said GotBot had never been interested in a silent investor.

“We wanted someone with an established network who would be involved on the ground and walk this road with us, keeping our best interests at heart. We found this in CapaciTech, who understand our culture, and we look forward to achieving greatness together,” he said.

GotBot took part in the first edition of the Startupbootcamp AfriTech accelerator in Cape Town back in 2017, and its deal with RCS was one of 32 such corporate partnerships struck by participating startups.

Charles Rapulu Udoh

Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based Lawyer with special focus on Business Law, Intellectual Property Rights, Entertainment and Technology Law. He is also an award-winning writer. Working for notable organizations so far has exposed him to some of industry best practices in business, finance strategies, law, dispute resolution, and data analytics both in Nigeria and across the world