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Luzia lands $10 million in funding to expand its WhatsApp-based chatbot

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The provision of Massive Language Fashions (LLMs) has made it simpler for builders to make chatbots. Massive firms comparable to OpenAI, Google and Microsoft have made ChatGPT, Bard and Bing Chat extensively accessible. Nonetheless, non-tech prosperous audiences may not pay attention to a few of these bots. Spain-based Luzia is attempting to introduce AI chatbot tech to customers by way of a WhatsApp-based bot.

The corporate, based in 2023 by Álvaro Martínez Higes, Javier Andrés and Carlos Pérez, is attempting to deal with the Spanish and Portuguese-speaking marketplace for chatbots. Utilizing Luzia is fairly simple. It can save you the chatbot as a contact in your telephone and begin speaking to it on WhatsApp or Telegram.

Luzia co-founders from left: Javier Andrés, Carlos Pérez, and Álvaro Martínez Higes. Picture Credit: Luzia

The startup mentioned greater than 17 million customers have interacted with Luzia to this point, with 8 million of them lively on a month-to-month foundation. Whereas it didn’t point out its each day lively customers, the startup mentioned it receives 13 million each day requests.

Martínez Higes advised TechCrunch that most individuals ahead Luzia as a contact to have their mates chat with the bot.

The corporate makes use of your telephone quantity to detect the nation that you simply’re in and begins speaking in Spanish or Portuguese. As the corporate is increasing within the U.S., Luzia will begin talking in English, however when you discuss to it in Spanish, it’s going to default to Spanish. However provided that it depends on GPT tech, it will possibly converse in different languages as nicely.

Luzia at the moment is suitable with customers in Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Spain, Mexico and now the U.S.

The concept is to introduce Luzia to customers who may not learn about AI fashions. The corporate mentioned that loads of first-time customers evaluate the bot with a voice assistant, comparable to Siri or Alexa. Whereas the app exhibits a primary onboarding message with a number of the use circumstances, the startup will not be actively sending instructional messages to customers to allow them to learn about completely different units of options.

The corporate makes use of a mixture of fashions comparable to GPT 3.5/4, Llama, and Kandinsky to energy the interplay. Similar to every other chatbot, customers can ask Luzia to generate textual content for e mail or reply questions. They will additionally ahead a voice notice or an audio file for the bot to transcribe it. Plus, Luzia can generate photos primarily based on the given immediate.

Asking Luzia about weather

Asking Luzia concerning the climate. Picture Credit: Luzia

Luzia just lately raised $10 million in Collection A funding led by Khosla Ventures. Different buyers participated, comparable to Basketball Corridor of Famer Pao Gasol, A* Capital, Summary Ventures, FJ Labs, Globo Enterprise, Mike Santos of Technisys, Sean Ryan of Sean Investments LTD and Grupo Product. Earlier than this spherical, the corporate had raised $3 million.

The corporate is conserving the bot free for the second and specializing in development and creating person worth.

“We now have seen monetization instruments like unlocking limitless messages, long-length transcriptions and giving entry to raised fashions by way of paid plans. However these are rapidly changing into commoditized within the business. If we’d have gone with that route, we’d have been lifeless,” Martínez Higes mentioned.

Adina Tecklu, a associate at Khosla Ventures, mentioned that Luzia is positioned nicely to deal with the non-public assistant market. Tecklu added that simply addressing the LatAm and the Iberian Peninsula market is a big alternative.

“I’ve been this area for a while — how can AI actually energy shopper interactions. In Luzia, we noticed a powerful crew with a really deep understanding of their shopper base leading to thrilling early traction. Their product is really resonating with Spanish and Portuguese shoppers and having such early person traction is spectacular,” Tecklu advised TechCrunch over e mail.

This yr, Khosla has invested in a number of startups engaged on AI and LLM tech, together with studying coach app Ello and conversational studying app Quazel.

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