Conversational AI company Kasisto secures $17m for expansion
Conversational artificial intelligence (AI) provider Kasisto has raised $17m and entered into a partnership with venture growth-equity fund Oak HC/FT. Kasisto's AI, called KAI, powers bots with financial expertise that allow banks to engage with customers across multiple platforms and promote offers. The company plans to expand the platform and incorporate new features with the proceeds.
Source: Kasisto

Kasisto, creators of KAI, the leading conversational AI platform for finance, today announced a $17 million Series B funding round led by Oak HC/FT with participation from existing investors Propel Venture Partners, Two Sigma Ventures, Commerce Ventures, Mastercard and Partnership Fund for New York City.

KAI enables financial institutions to acquire new customers as well as engage, support, and generate additional revenue from existing customers via human-like, intelligent conversations with smart-bots and virtual assistants, anytime, anywhere.

The new capital will be used to scale the business to meet the increasing demand for Kasisto’s products in existing and new markets as well as deepen partnerships with existing customers. This new funding will also be invested in expanding the KAI platform to include new AI-powered features and incorporate innovations that continue to deliver both business results and customer engagement and delight.

“This past year has been one of explosive growth across the board – the number of signed deals and deployed customers, our team’s strength and size, and KAI’s feature robustness and readiness for large-scale enterprise deployments,” says Zor Gorelov, CEO and Co-Founder of Kasisto. “There is great momentum going into this investment, especially following the recent signing of major customers including TD Bank and Standard Chartered Bank. We are very excited to partner with Oak HC/FT on this next phase and consider their track record and expertise in the finance sector a significant asset.”

“AI’s adoption in financial services has continued at a rapid pace. This technology serves as a catalyst of change to enhance the sector’s technology and operations entirely,” adds Patricia Kemp, Co-founder & General Partner at Oak HC/FT. “Kasisto has an amazing track record of not only having one of the most proven and comprehensive AI platforms in the industry, but also with their customers – some of the world’s most innovative financial institutions -- that sets them apart. We are excited to partner with Kasisto to continue to drive scale and growth.”

KAI is an enterprise-ready platform that powers bots and virtual assistant with financial expertise, steeped with domain knowledge, so financial institutions can:

Offer entirely new and differentiated experiences to their consumers, designed with the most intuitive user interface: natural human language

Decrease customer care costs by deflecting call center calls and triaging inquiries

Increase lifetime value of customers with contextual and relevant offers for financial products and services

Engage customers and promote brand loyalty with proactive financial well-being features

Meet customers in their preferred channel – mobile, web, messaging or home devices

Oak HC/FT is the premier venture growth-equity fund investing in Healthcare Information & Services (“HC”) and Financial Services Technology (“FT”). Kasisto is the 18th investment by Oak HC/FT since launching in June 2014. The fund and its investors contain deep domain experience and are uniquely positioned to provide entrepreneurs and companies with strategic counsel, board-level participation, and access to an extensive network of industry leaders. Ms. Kemp will join the board of Kasisto and Michael Heller will join as a Board Observer.