Mezi, the US-headquartered developer of a chatbot-based shopping app, secured $9m on Tuesday in a series A round backed by payment services firm American Express.
Amex, which participated in the round through its American Express Ventures unit, was joined by venture capital firms Nexus Venture Partners and Saama Capital and angel investors Amit Singhal and Gokul Rajaram.
Founded in 2015, Mezi has built an app that combines artificial intelligence and human input to build up a shopping experience built on an individual user’s preferences.
The app, launched in December, works through messaging and picks out items based on user price points, preferences and learned habits, and Mezi claims its bots are capable of rapid-fire conversation that makes them “indistinguishable from human assistants”.
Rohit Bodas, partner at American Express Ventures, said: “Mezi has created an intuitive platform that helps consumers unlock something we all want – a personal assistant in the palm of your hand, whether you need to book travel, purchase a gift or buy a new wardrobe.
“The underlying technology behind Mezi’s bot combines the human touch with the power of artificial intelligence. We are pleased to support Mezi with this investment.”
Nexus led Mezi’s $2.8m seed round in December, taking part together with angel investors Manish Chandra, Nickhil Jakatdar, Scott Bagby, Chris Becherer, Rajan Navani and Rajesh Kamat.