nettle.ai receives €1 million investment from Crowdberry

Slovak company nettle.ai, which is focused on solutions in the area of conversational technologies using artificial intelligence, received a significant investment in the volume of €1 million from Crowdberry investors and the Venture to Future Fund (VFF) investment fund. The company will use the investment for its further growth, marketing and completion of the product portfolio.

nettle.ai was established in 2018 and in a short pace of time became one of the top Central European firms working in the area of intelligent conversational solutions. Companies such as Eset, Samsung, 365.banka and Jaguar Land Rover use its AI in the form of virtual assistants (chatbots) in communication with customers. It is one of the few Central European companies to count itself among the partners of Google Business Messages, while it is also working with the technology giant on multiple solutions for the introduction of new SMS standards, known as RCS communication. nettle.ai is also a partner of the European Robotic Centre of the leading auditing and consulting company Mazars. The founder of nettle.ai, whose sales increased in the past year in spite of the recession caused by the pandemic, has big plans for it. The €1-million investment from Crowdberry investors and VFF will help the company with its further expansion into new markets and product development.

“We appreciate the confidence that these investors have shown in us and see the investment as a significant advancement in our development. We want to build on our competitive advantage, which is our own software; the ability to design and implement a functional chatbot tailored to the needs of the client; and our unique partnerships. Thanks to the investment, we will start looking at comprehensive vertically-oriented conversation interfaces that enable us to scale projects, in addition to the project deliveries of chatbots, mailbots and voicebots. A chatbot for a seller of automobiles and a chatbot for the collection of debts are some of the first such “boxed” products we have created,” says Andrej Greguš, one of the founders of nettle.ai.

“The dynamics of the market, which is driven by technological advances and automation, have also positively influenced the company’s development. Just the chatbot market alone is expected to see worldwide growth on a level of 30% (CAGR 2018 – 2025) and should reach a value of $15 billion [1]. This is where we see huge potential for the application of intelligent solutions like those nettle.ai develops and, thus, for an increase in the firm’s value,” states Michal Ondrišek, a Partner of Crowdberry.

By 2023, some 2.5 billion hours of customer service should be saved worldwide each year, which will bring savings amounting to $11 billion for the retail, bank and health insurance sectors. More than 80% of companies [2] should introduce their own chatbots for communication in the near future, while companies spend on average 50% more on virtual assistants annually than on mobile applications [3]. “Conversational technologies bring considerable savings and streamlining for companies, for which quality customer service these days is a question of prestige or reputation. nettle.ai has the advantage of being a small firm that, thanks to its technological/business background, can very flexibly react to the requirements of large companies,” adds Michal Ondrišek from Crowdberry.

“The creation of algorithms using AI and machine learning is leading to huge advancements in this rapidly-developing sector. The result of the constant progress in this area is that AI is no longer a futuristic technology, but is increasingly integrated into all aspects of our lives. Chatbots are also one of the applications of AI and machine learning, and they are rapidly becoming an essential part of the effectively-implemented processes in every organisation. This is precisely the area developed by nettle.ai, which has become one of the most innovative companies oriented on the development of chatbots and natural language processing. We see potential in the company and we believe that in the coming years it will bring new solutions that will quickly be adopted by modern-managed companies. The main goal of VFF, which is a joint initiative of Slovak Investment Holding, the European Investment Bank and the Ministry of Finance of the Slovak Republic, is to support investments into innovative companies,” says Matej Říha, the Chairman of the Board of the Venture to Future Fund.

nettle.ai has received several significant awards, including the Best AI/ML Startup in Slovakia award as part of the Central European Startup Awards in 2019. It has several interesting references in its portfolio: many technology companies and banking institutions use nettle.ai conversational AI tools for communication with their customers. It has also found applications in the entertainment and gaming industries, tourism, ticket sales, when collecting debts, and also in the marketing or support of the HR departments of companies. nettle.ai is number one worldwide in the use of chatbots in Google Marketing Platform advertising banners, and is also a qualified Google Cloud for Startups partner, thanks to which it has received support in the form of computing power in the value of €100,000.

[1] Source: Adroit Market Research

[2] Source: Oracle Survey of 800 Global CXOs

[3] Source: Gartner