Connectly, now backed by Alibaba, taps AI to personalize text messages to customers
Connectly.ai, a startup using AI to personalize text messages from brands, has closed a new fund round led by Chinese tech giant Alibaba.
Stefanos Loukakos, formerly a director at Meta’s business-focused Messenger division and, briefly, the tech giant’s blockchain org, noticed several years ago that online retailers were struggling to connect with potential shoppers. The problem, in his opinion, was that their marketing campaigns weren’t tailored enough. Merchants were sending generic social media, text, and email blasts that failed to resonate with buyers and convert.
“Businesses need a solution to create winning messaging campaigns and automate conversations with both leads and customers,” Loukakos said. “Ideally, it can also tailor suggestions to ensure customers discover products they’ll love, and help companies gain a deeper understanding of their customers.”
Things clicked when Loukakos met Yandong Liu, formerly the CTO of Strava and a former Yahoo researcher, through a mutual friend in the founder community. The pair quickly bonded over their shared interest in messaging-based marketing, and in 2020, they founded Connectly.ai, which leverages AI to help businesses, like retailers and enterprise e-commerce leaders, sell their products and services across any messaging platform. According to Loukakos, customers can “send and receive messages without having to host, manage or take care of software updates.”
Connectly’s platform integrates with a range of messaging apps and services — including WhatsApp, Instagram, SMS and web-based chatbots — to let brands create ad campaigns and automate certain basic conversations with customers. AI, fine-tuned on a retailer’s product catalog and preferences and plugged into the brand’s online store, sends texts informing customers of things like price changes, stock availability and offers.
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