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Charles raises $20 million to bring chat commerce to WhatsApp in Europe – TechCrunch


Chat commerce is not exactly a new phenomenon, with countless companies using live chat, messaging apps, chatbots, voice assistant and more to encourage consumers to part with their cash. As part of that broader movement, the mighty WhatsApp, a dominant force in the messaging world, has been pushing deeper into the business with a multitude of tools to connect retailers with customer – from product portfolio and collectionarrive trolley and Shop on Instagram integration.

The conversational commerce market is also quite substantial, with China’s WeChat reportedly being Facilitating $250 Billion in Transactions 2020 alone, but while shopping from within messaging apps is par for the course in many markets around the world, especially in Asia and Latin America, it’s still far from complete. achieved the same level in Europe – and this is what the German startup Charles wants to change with a platform that combines the key components of chat commerce with the marketing power of newsletters.

Two years on from launch, Charles today announced that it has raised $20 million in a Series A funding round led by Salesforce Ventures, with participation from Accel and HV Capital. This follows $6.5 million seed funding round it increased last year.

How it works

Founded in Berlin in 2019, Charles advertises itself as a comprehensive, end-to-end product that includes a backend and frontend that connects APIs from messaging services like WhatsApp to systems popular e-commerce and CRM (customer relationship management) like Shopify and Salesforce. Businesses can then sell products, send out newsletters, and provide follow-up support.

Charles’s foundation is up and running

While the sales and service aspect is expected from any conversational commerce software, the newsletter aspect is an interesting addition. WhatsApp newsletters can include discounts, special offers, product announcements or video messages – but it’s important that it’s designed for the medium in which it’s being used (i.e. a messaging app) instead of the traditional email format.

Newsletters are essentially one-to-many “broadcasts”, except when accessed through an API, businesses can send to an unlimited number of recipients at once – standard broadcast in WhatsApp is limited to 256 people. On top of that, retailers can use the Charles platform to create an automated opt-in process (e.g. through the click of a button or scanning a QR code on a website), with access to performance analytics. rate to show how the WhatsApp newsletter is developing in terms of engagement.

WhatsApp Newsletter: Subscription encouraged

Dialogue Trade to Europe

A quick look around the world reveals a wide range of activities in the dialogue trade space, with like whym, Zeals, Yaloand Magician recently raised funds for target markets in Asia or the Americas. In other places, Vonage Snapshot Conversational trading company based in Singapore Sweater.

This hints at how Charles is looking to differentiate – it wants to replicate the success of these other companies in markets closer to home. And here’s what its new $20 million cash will be used for, as it wants to expand its reach beyond Germany.

It is worth noting that Charles has specifically built his foundation with European data privacy law (i.e. GDPR). For example, with a WhatsApp newsletter, Charles offers customers a double opt-in after they indicate that they want to receive WhatsApp messages – so the customer can request a newsletter subscription (first opt-in). first) and then they are asked a second time to confirm that this is what they want. And all this is automated.

“Targeting Europe, one of our key differentiating factors is the fact that we built GDPR compliance from the ground up,” said co-founder and co-CEO Charles Artjem Weissbeck. with TechCrunch.

Charles says it’s GDPR compliant

Not everyone will be happy to have targeted advertising and marketing in their WhatsApp inbox every day and that’s why Charles is focusing on the opt-in/opt-out process . It’s not like email, and it needs to be handled accordingly.

Weissbeck continues: “To be GDPR compliant, brands need your initial consent to receive notifications, while you can opt out at any time. “That’s also why we help brands with our automated opt-out and opt-out technology, and our success team advises them on the frequency and relevance of notifications. In contrast to emails, they must have low frequency and high relevance to respect channel intimacy and retain consumer trust. On average, this means one to two campaigns per month. “

Although Charles has seen the strongest traction in its domestic German market, it has seen some interest from Italy, Spain, France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

“These are the countries that we have already started to expand and more than 20% of our customers are from there – especially Italy and the UK,” added co-founder and co-CEO Andreas Tussing. . “Our ultimate ambition is global and we selectively experiment with companies outside of Europe.”

In the relatively short time so far, Charles says that some of their more than a hundred customers have hit 7-digit WhatsApp revenue this year, accounting for 40% of their total sales. But Charles is aware of the fact that while WhatsApp is a preeminent messaging platform in Europe, it’s not the only player in town – that’s why it supports both Instagram Direct and Facebook. Messenger, and also support for Telegram, iMessage, RCS, Google MyBusiness Chat and SMS.

“However, most businesses in Europe are focused on WhatsApp because of the highest consumer penetration, enhanced rich formats, and the most advanced API capabilities for businesses, ‘ Tussing noted.



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