Montreal-based Automat has raised an $11 million CAD Series A round.
The round was led by the brandtech group You & Mr Jones. The round also included investments from new investors Comcast Ventures and Omidyar Technology Ventures, along with follow-on investments from existing investors Relay Ventures, Real Ventures, and USAA. The round brings Automat’s total funding to $14 million.
Automat’s platform allows brands to build bots that enable one-on-one conversations with customers at scale.
“The caliber of investors in this latest funding round, along with our recent customer announcements with L’Oreal and National Bank of Canada, all point to the growing momentum of Conversational Marketing among leading brands,” said Andy Mauro, CEO of Automat. “We see a real convergence around brandtech, media and e-commerce and, with You & Mr Jones, Comcast Ventures, and Omidyar Technology Ventures, we have very strategic partners to help us realize our vision of letting brands build personalized one-on-one conversational experiences for their customers, fans, and followers.”
The funding will be used to support and expand the company’s engineering, research, and product teams to accelerate the development of additional features. The company will also dedicate some funding towards further business development, sales, and marketing efforts.
“We’re building a technology group that can help brands deliver their marketing much more effectively and we’re clearly not alone in believing that AI and conversational marketing are going to be game-changers in the world of business. But as ever, execution is what counts. That’s the thing that’s been very impressive about Andy and the Automat team since our initial seed investment. They are very tangibly delivering on the promise,” said David Jones, founder of You & Mr Jones. “Automat has the team, vision, and technology needed to make conversational marketing a widespread reality and help brands get the greatest return on investment from it.”