In the United States, it is common for companies with both physical branches and online services to use customer relationship management (CRM) software to track all customer interactions in one place. However, this is not the case in Latin America, where many companies and banks keep data in physical locations separate from digital data. Numia wants to change that.
Argentina-based Numia's technology helps companies use AI to unify customer service channels into one platform. The platform is vendor agnostic and can connect to bank kiosks, tablets, and even software like Salesforce and Genesys. Businesses looking to use Numia have a choice of integrations to connect to. The company works with large companies in various categories, including banking, healthcare, and insurance.
Numia co-founder and CEO Gustavo Lauria (pictured above, center) told TechCrunch that the company was originally launched in 2014 as queue management software to help businesses like banks and pharmacies manage their physical offices. He said it was founded in . The company decided to pivot to its current strategy in 2020 after seeing that its customers were no longer connecting data obtained from physical locations to online platforms.
“There was a lot of work to be done offline, but offline was and still is a very overlooked area,” Lauria said. “[Numia] is essentially a customer journey manager that can essentially combine and seamlessly integrate the two worlds, physical and digital, to manage different customer journeys. ”
Lauria said that having all this data in one place makes interacting with customers more efficient. When offline interactions are streamlined, it becomes easier for businesses to connect customers with human customer service representatives. Additionally, some tasks that were previously completed by human representatives at physical branches are now handled by AI agents.
“We're giving CRM some kind of superpower, because we've enabled it to reach further in some ways,” says Lauria. “So we wanted them to reach further offline, and we wanted them to connect online as well. Of course, there are many more tools online. What we offer them is the possibility to integrate everything. .”
The company currently has more than 350 customers in 10 countries in Latin America, including large corporations such as Banco Santander, HSBC and Allianz.
Numia is profitable and expects to post ARR of $4.7 million to $5 million at the end of the year, Lauria said. He added that the company aims to double this number over the next two years. The company has avoided taking venture financing during its 10-year history.
Numia announces a $3.5 million seed round led by Cometa with participation from MatterScale Ventures and London-based Boost Capital Partners, among others.
Lauria said the company decided to raise external funding to get closer to potential customers. Many of the clients were venture fund LPs from which Numia was considering raising capital. It also provided us with the resources we needed to expand our customer base.
“To make sure we have all these resources, to attend all the conferences we need, to make sure we have the number of account executives, we have to constantly talk to these bank vice presidents, and that takes a lot of resources.” said Lauria. “Raising money was the most logical decision for us.”
Lauria said the fundraising journey didn't start lightly, as he found that many investors didn't understand why the 10-year-old, profitable company was raising money in the first place. spoke. But once Mr. Cometa agreed to lead the round, he said, it started to get easier.
Lauria said the company plans to use 70% of the capital for marketing, sales and hiring, with the remaining 30% going toward improving and building technology. The company hopes to continue expanding its capabilities to provide customers with even more integration options. The company is also looking to improve its AI technology to make the customer journey more efficient.
“Companies can drive more sales by offering a more personalized customer journey,” says Lauria. “It's not just how I make you better. I help you be more efficient. I make the journey more personalized, so you sell more.”