Arabot, an Amman-based ‘Bot as a Service’ startup has raised $1 million in seed funding led Saudi’s Riyad Taqnia Fund (RTF) with participation from existing investors, RTF announced in a statement.
Founded in 2016 by Abdallah Faza and Kais Hassan in 2016, Arabot allows businesses to integrate and use its intelligent Arabic bot (that also speaks English) through their website, mobile app, or contact center platform to engage with customers. Arabot according to its website is built upon Arabic NLP engine which can understand and analyze Arabic content and conversation in different Arabic dialects.
“We are building a conversation/dialogue management as a hybrid rule-based system fused with Deep Machine Learning to reach needed levels of Natural Language Understanding (NLU),” notes Arabot’s website.
The service that could be used by businesses mainly for customer service and promotion can be integrated in their website, mobile app, contact center platform, or messaging platform. What Arabot is essentially trying to pitch to businesses is that they can (at least partially) rely on Arabot instead of human agents, wherever the medium is chat/messaging.
Abdallah Faza, co-founder and CEO of Arabot, commenting on the occasion, said, “We are positioning ourselves to be the regional leader of intelligent bots. We are improving efficiency through reducing operational costs, resolving inconsistent customer experience and managing an efficient and responsive customer’s channels across different platforms like online business chat, messaging applications, mobile and web.”
“Our new technology and fresh approach create a frictionless digital ecosystem that fosters product innovation, building world-class conversational experiences between humans and machines. We have an ambitious roadmap for the future of Arabot and we are delighted to have the support of the team at Riyad Taqnia Fund, who understand our vision for a more efficient, automated and digital world,” he added.
Qusai Alsaif, a Senior Manager with RTF, said, “With businesses increasingly looking to streamline customer queries, increase customer satisfaction and reduce costs, Arabot is showing itself to be a pioneer [in this space], delivering much-needed disruption in the industry by using personalized customer experience, adapting to multiple Arabic dialects.”
According to its website, Arabot’s services are being used by Aramex, Orange, Bayt, Honda, and Total.