As reported by Starting Up, Charles has secured €1 million in funding from business angels including Tarek Müller, CEO AboutYou, Alexander Graf, CEO Spryker Systems, Kassenzone, and Nils Seebach, CFO Etribes.
Founded by e-commerce experts Artjem Weissbeck and Andreas Tussing, Charles is a developer of Conversational-Commerce-as-a-Service software. It integrates messenger API’s with commerce backend enabling merchants and consumer brands to sell products via WhatsApp and other chat apps. AI-based technology and chat bots allow merchants to build subscriber lists, notify customers about new products, campaigns, as well as to provide personal consultations.
After Facebook and Instagram had made shopping possible on their platforms, WhatsApp also built an interface, which enables the direct integration of webshops, into its app. In China, messaging services are highly profitable sales channel, and Weissbeck and Tussing are aimed to make WhatsApp popular as shopping place in Germany, Handelsblatt writes.
“Our goal is to be a growth partner for our clients by building our Conversational Commerce solution on existing trading systems and processes. Some of our first clients already sell more via WhatsApp than via their online shops. Others see WhatsApp as a real alternative to newsletters with personalized reminders that perform 20 times better than e-mail,” Tussing said.
