While customer service is largely centered around human interaction, it’s largely been powered by non-human automation lately. While automation has allowed companies to address staffing challenges and quickly address customer needs, it can be a source of frustration if not done correctly. NLX is a conversational AI platform centered around self-driven customer service experiences. Using a blend of AI and natural language understanding (NLU), the end-to-end no-code platform allows organizations to design multi-modal seamless customer experiences that are synced across multiple interaction channels – whether it be phone, chat, online, or voice to provide intelligent automated customer service. NLX also offers built-in reporting and analytics so that teams can quickly adjust the customer experience based on real-time qualitative and quantitative feedback. NLX, founded in 2018, is currently industry agnostic but is picking up traction in the hospitality, travel, automotive, retail, and health & wellness sectors.
AlleyWatch caught up with NLX CEO, Cofounder, and Chief Product Officer Andrei Papancea to learn more about the business, the company’s strategic plans, latest round of funding, which brings the total funding raised to $9.6M, and much, much more…
Who were your investors and how much did you raise?
We’re proud to share that NLX raised $4.6M in Seed II funding despite the challenging market for tech companies and startups. The round was led by IAG Capital Partners with participation from JetBlue Ventures, Flying Fish Partners, and others. The capital raised will be used to continue fueling NLX’s marketplace expansion and product optimization.
Tell us about the product or service that NLX offers.
NLX is a solutions-focused SaaS company. We’ve succeeded by really listening to the problem our clients present and enabling them to use our platform, Conversations by NLX, to create and deploy personalized conversational AI solutions for their customers.
Conversations by NLX is an end-to-end no-code platform for building, managing, and analyzing all automated conversations in one centralized place. Within the platform, brands can customize and personalize their conversations to match their brand and greet the end user personally. The platform also contains built-in reporting and analytics, so teams can adjust conversations according to real-time qualitative and quantitative customer feedback to improve the end-user experience. When implemented, NLX empowers a brand’s customers to resolve their inquiries at their own pace – with no wait time or frustration.
Conversations by NLX is industry agnostic and incredibly flexible, allowing brands to build and mix voice, chat, and multimodal conversations easily. The platform easily integrates with all your channels, systems, and unique business processes, so there’s no need to hire a third party or a team to get started. Plus, with NLX’s usage-based business model, brands can scale their automation according to demand while only paying for what is used.
What inspired the start of NLX?
When we started NLX in 2018, we knew there was an opportunity to improve the customer service landscape. Hold times and staffing challenges continuously plague the customer support industry, resulting in diminished customer satisfaction, brand loyalty, and ultimately, a hit to the bottom line.
The pandemic compounded these existing challenges, creating a clear need: Businesses needed a better way to efficiently and effectively address customer inquiries – whenever and however – without hiring more staff.
None of the solutions on the market seemed to fully and completely address the business need, and, with our experience and knowledge in the AI and NLU space, we knew we could rise to meet the challenge. So, Peter, Vlad, and I began creating a suite of AI-powered products that allow businesses to offer white-glove service to all their customers, no matter if they reach out on the phone, online, or using voice assistant technology like Alexa or Siri — and so, NLX was born.
How is NLX different?
NLX is different from thousands of other conversational AI companies for a few reasons:
- We put the end-user at the center of the equation and drive innovation through our products from there. When the end user succeeds, the brand succeeds, and NLX succeeds. It’s a win all the way around.
- We focus on creating personalized, multimodal conversational experiences. Whether they are internal or external, personalized, multimodal conversations help to better engage the end-user to automate the conversation, meaning that an actual person needs to spend less time addressing routine tasks and can focus on more difficult situations.
- Our pre-built integrations with leading technology providers like AWS, Twilio, Cisco, and others make getting started with NLX fast and easy, while enabling customers to leverage their existing technology investments.
- NLX’s no-code platform offers both technical and non-technical teams the ability to design, build, manage, and analyze all of their voice, chat, and multimodal conversations in one place. This breaks down silos between teams so they can focus on creating and finessing the perfect end-user experience.
- Our pay-as-you-go business model scales according to customer demand, so businesses only pay for what they use.
The combination of all these differentiating factors is what makes NLX unique, and a smart, cost-effective solution for brands in any industry to move forward with.
What market does NLX target and how big is it?
By design, NLX’s platform is industry and use-case agnostic. As a result of that, we target the broader customer contact center market, which is encompassing everything from call centers, to chat, all the way to personal assistants like Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri. We’ve spent a better part of the pandemic working with travel and hospitality companies, but we also work with leading retail, CPG, financial services, insurance, and healthcare brands.
What’s your business model?
At NLX, we put the customer at the center of the equation and asked ourselves what works best for them – while also ensuring we could grow a viable business for ourselves. Our pay-as-you-go pricing means you can easily scale according to demand while only paying for what you use. This means that brands can begin building their multimodal (two or more synchronized channels), chat, and voice conversations in our no-code Conversations by NLX platform for free.
How are you preparing for a potential economic slowdown?
I’m approaching every day with cautious optimism. We have a great pipeline of customers, amazing partners, supportive investors, and an incredible team.
And while I’m optimistic, cash flow management is rather critical to any business, so keeping a close eye on how much we spend and what we spend on is a key focus as we weather the storm.
What was the funding process like?
The funding environment over the past 6 months+ has been rather austere. That meant less deployable capital, fewer meetings, and longer due diligence cycles. Despite that, our market traction, our pipeline, our proven partnerships, and amazing investors, were key ingredients to our success. I’m very grateful to our investors, our executive team, and most importantly to our broader NLX team for all the hard work they put in to help make this happen.
What are the biggest challenges that you faced while raising capital?
The biggest challenge with raising capital, I find, is that it always takes longer than you think — or longer than you want. Pack in an economic downturn and you get yourself a rollercoaster ride. Ultimately, the only things within your control as an entrepreneur are your pitch, your team (if you set the right culture), and your execution. I’ve learned that getting those right and pushing through as many investor meetings as possible, will ultimately yield success.
What factors about your business led your investors to write the check?
I think there are a couple of things both since the last raise and things on the horizon that led investors to write the check… Since the last raise, NLX has significantly increased its customer base with enterprise, Fortune 200, and mid-sized companies; launched The Showroom (a live, personalized, multimodal conversational experience with AWS); obtained a patent for our method of multi-channel audio synchronization for task automation; made significant product enhancements with an upcoming announcement in early 2023; and won “Best Customer Service Platform 2022” as well as “Best Tools and Services 2022”.
All of these accomplishments, coupled with running a business in a space full of opportunity, while operating with a strong team and a great culture, I think is what ultimately led our investors to commit.
What are the milestones you plan to achieve in the next six months?
There are so many things I’m excited about, but I’ll give you a quick preview. In 2023, we have plans to announce a major overhaul to one of our key products, announce several strategic partnerships and integrations, and last, but certainly not least, announce several new customers.
We will also for sure continue sharing more information about The Showroom, an interactive travel & hospitality experience that puts you in the customer’s shoes. The Showroom is personalized and live so you can experience what end-to-end automated multimodal, voice, and chat conversations look like on a fully qualified AI platform.
And that’s just the beginning of it all. There’s a lot more still to come!
What advice can you offer companies in New York that do not have a fresh injection of capital in the bank?
Generally, I recommend approaching the market with cautious optimism and very closely watching your flow of money. These are two good business practices that I’ve learned will help you run a healthy business.
Now, for some concrete advice in the current economic environment:
- Keep taking investor meetings, keep pitching, and ask each investor you speak to for intros to other investors — most will be happy to do so.
- Reduce as many expenses as possible. This one can be a tough, but extremely necessary step.
- Get an American Express credit card — I’m being specific on purpose because most of the other “startup cards” on the market have a credit limit tied to your bank balance, plus they operate as charge cards (they need to be paid by the end of the month). We’ve used ours successfully a number of times when things got tight, especially between funding rounds.
- Take a look at Quickbooks as they can provide decent amounts of capital through fixed-fee loans at great rates and on very short timelines (think 1-2 days).
Push your customers to pay in advance. Incentivize them with steep discounts — whatever it takes to get you through. Sometimes 1-2 weeks of extra funding can be what saves your company.
Finances aside, it’s both easy and tempting during times of economic downturn for companies to focus more on revenue, cutting expenses, and less on the impact on the team and its culture. Don’t fall into that trap. When times get tough, it can be your company culture that saves you. Be transparent with your team — you might be pleasantly surprised what collective support can do when times get tough.
Finances aside, it’s both easy and tempting during times of economic downturn for companies to focus more on revenue, cutting expenses, and less on the impact on the team and its culture. Don’t fall into that trap. When times get tough, it can be your company culture that saves you. Be transparent with your team — you might be pleasantly surprised what collective support can do when times get tough.
Where do you see the company going now over the near term?
We’re in a really exciting growth phase. We’re continuing to innovate and augment the Conversations by NLX platform to meet our growing list of enterprise customers, while also expanding our strategic partnerships.
What’s your favorite restaurant in the city?
Peak in Hudson Yards is one of my main go-to’s. If you haven’t been, I highly recommend it. Great food, cozy atmosphere, breathtaking views, and fantastic service — what else could you want?
