[Funding alert] Social commerce startup Yalo raises $50M in Series C round led by B Capital Group

Yalo — a conversational commerce platform — recently raised $50 million (about Rs 363.8 crore) in a Series C funding led by existing venture investor B Capital Group.

Yalo, previously known as Yalochat, said the total capital raised by the startup stands at $75 million.

Yalo enables large enterprises like Unilever, Nestle, Coca-Cola, and Walmart to communicate and transact directly with consumers through messaging apps like WhatsApp. The startup has operations in the US, Mexico, Brazil, and India.

The social commerce startup will use the funds to deepen its presence in Latin America and Southeast Asia. It will also fund its development of new product offerings, including conversational marketing and payments solutions.

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Conversational commerce allows businesses to sell products in a personalised way through messaging apps by bridging the proximity of the physical world with the convenience of digital commerce.

According to a BCG report, conversational commerce is already a $35 billion market with the potential to reach $130 billion by 2025 in emerging markets.

"For a long time, enterprise digital transformation has been synonymous with complexity; not anymore. Conversational commerce is a simple technology solution that enables brands to meet end-users where they already are in their favorite mobile communication channels," Javier Mata, Founder and CEO, Yalo, said.

The investment will fund the development of new conversational commerce products and add further value for global customers by enabling them to retain their customer relationships and compete with ecommerce giants, Mata added.

Yalo has an office in Bengaluru, and a third of its userbase is in India.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Yalo enabled companies like Coca-Cola to shift offline commerce to conversational commerce, generating an increase in sales of more than 20 percent. Similarly, the startup helped US retailer Sears increase its own conversion rate via c-commerce by 260 percent.

Driven by these customers’ success stories, last year, Yalo recorded yearly revenue growth of 120 percent, and the startup rapidly scaled its teams to serve customers across more than 41 countries.