Rocketbots, a Hong Kong-based Artificial Intelligence Chatbot company has recently closed their Seed Round for an undisclosed amount to help kick off its newest products to a rapidly-growing market. This round was led by Global Technology Alliance, an angel investment group operated by two renowned serial entrepreneurs from Germany including the former CTO of Scout24 & the founder of Smartcast, and joined by the CEO of Sun Hing Printing.
The global chatbot market was valued at USD 190.8 million in 2016, it is expected to continue to experience significant growth driven by increasing adoption in customer service to reduce operating costs. According to a recent report by Grand View Research, the global chatbot market is expected to reach $1.23 billion by 2025.
Before launching the Rocketbots Platform, the company provided solution-oriented business-to-business (B2B) services – utilizing AI and Natural Language Processing (NLP) in chatbots for several large enterprises.
“Over the past year we’ve built numerous chatbots across all sort of verticals – in doing so we’ve realized that the tools available are far from perfect, so we decided to make our own” said Gerardo Salandra CEO of Rocketbots and Chairman of the Artificial Intelligence Society of Hong Kong.
The Rocketbots Platform enables chatbots to fit the specific operational protocols of modern-day customer service teams. It brings together CRM, analytics, insights, and human-handoff, designed to bring bot-assisted service into the mainstream. By tying together messaging channels and human hand-off, the platform allows organizations to decide what their customers discuss with bots or with human agents. The Platform is eliminating the barriers to widespread adoption and ushering in the era of hybrid customer support.
The jump start achieved by Rocketbots is partly attributed to the opportunities available in Hong Kong. With its mature legal environment, central location in the world’s fastest-growing region, tight-knit business community, and penchant for networking, Hong Kong is a place which facilitates growth. Its’ institutions also play their part with a network of universities and research facilities that nurture talent as well as government agencies like InvestHK which provided us customized support.
“Considering that the latest technological revolution has birthed numerous businesses based on apps, we want to spearhead and empower the next wave of entrepreneurs to build the next big thing based on chatbots, we call them Botpreneurs” said Gerardo on a further note.
In addition to the platform, Rocketbots intends to launch the Rocketbots Academy, a series workshops, webinars and hackathons across South East Asia, the Academy seeks to democratize AI and empower a new wave of entrepreneurs for the post-app era.
About Rocketbots
Founded in 2016, Rocketbots is an AI chat automation platform for enterprises to engage employees & customers. Launch on platforms like Facebook Messenger, website, SMS, Wechat mobile apps and more.
About the Founders
Gerardo Salandra | Co-Founder & CEO
Gerardo is a serial entrepreneur and public speaker in Hong Kong, a growth hacker at heart and founder of the Artificial Intelligence Society of Hong Kong, he aims to bring AI to the masses. An IBM & Google veteran, with deep expertise in growth hacking, machine learning, and chatbots. A graduate of the MBA program at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Iaroslav Kudritskiy | Co-Founder & COO
Iaroslav is the driving force behind the conversational design at Rocketbots and the creator of the Rocketbots Academy courseware. His previous roles designing information management systems and horizontal knowledge transfer strategies at Kodak Alaris, Xaxis & Light Reaction. A graduate of the MBA program at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Hassan Ahmed | Co-Founder & CTO
Hassan oversees the technology development at Rocketbots. Having been in the tech development field for more than 14 years, he has seen its evolution from command lines to modern interfaces. Hassan founded and lead the development of Pakistan’s largest news aggregator until it’s acquisition. A Computer Science graduate with previous experience working at Center for Advanced Research in Engineering.
About the Investors
Alexander Nowotny | Managing Partner GTA & former CTO Scout24
As Former CTO of Scout24 and CDO of MX1, Alexander now acts as Global Technology Alliance’s Managing Partner in Hong Kong and engages in entrepreneurial tasks in the region.
Christian Brenner | Managing Partner GTA and Serial entrepreneur
Former founder of SmartCast and other Businesses across Asia. SmartCast started their rapid SaaS-Solution expansion throughout Asia via Hong Kong in 2011. By the time SmartCast was bought and fully integrated by the world’s biggest Satellite Operator SES from Luxembourg in 2016, the company was operating local subsidiaries in Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia and South Korea and served Media giants like Fox, Turner and Disney..
Kenneth Chan | CEO of Sun Hing Printing
Sun Hing Printing is the leading one-stop printing service provider in Hong Kong. Kenneth Chan lead the company to an IPO in 2017. According to the Frost & Sullivan Report, Sun Hing is ranked fifth in terms of share of total industry revenue in Hong Kong for 2016.
Andy Ann | CEO NDN Group & Serial entrepreneur
Incorporated in 2002 as a private company, NDN Group has evolved over the last decade from a single digital media business in one city, to a broad-based total solution corporation in multiple markets.
