Ooni Koda
  1. Home
  2. /
  3. Newsfeed
  4. /
  5. Siena AI, an autonomous chat solution designed for...

Siena AI, an autonomous chat solution designed for e-commerce and launched by Romanian entrepreneurs secures $4.7M investment

November 17, 2023

San Francisco (California), Bucharest (Romania), November 16th: Siena, a US-based start-up launched by Romanian founders that developed an autonomous AI customer service platform designed for e-commerce, raised $4.7M from a group of investors, including Sierra Ventures, Parri Passu Ventures, SpaceStation Investments, Village Global, The Council, and OpenSky Ventures. This investment will support Siena's vision to transform customer service by integrating human empathy and intelligent automation.

 

The US start-up was created in 2022 in San Francisco (California) by the Romanian entrepreneurs Andrei Negrau (co-founder and CEO) and Lisa Popovici (co-founder and CMO). The two founders have nine years of e-commerce experience and are second-time founders in the conversational commerce space. The first e-commerce business the two founders launched was Cartloop in 2020.

 

Siena was built on three pillars:

 

  1. Human-like empathy: Siena introduces AI Personas, allowing brands to craft a unique voice and style for their AI agents. This approach goes beyond the standard, offering entertaining and witty interactions on platforms like Instagram and maintaining professionalism in e-mails.

 

  1. Gets the job done: Siena autonomously executes tasks assigned by brands, such as editing subscriptions or arranging replacements. Its capabilities include pulling data from connected systems, asking clarifying questions, and making real-time updates.

 

  1. Human reasoning: Siena's CORE (Cognitive Reasoning-Based Engine) uses reasoning-based decision-making to handle the complex reality of customer service. In this way, the AI assesses multiple factors in real-time, handling complex tasks like refund requests or multi-step retention plans for subscription brands.

 

One place for all channels

 

The platform autonomously handles up to 80% of all customer interactions across more than 100

languages and all channels (including e-mail, social DMs and comments). Siena resolves 80% of conversations with a 4.81 Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT score) based on over 50,000 customer satisfaction surveys.

 

"We started Siena from a simple question: «How can we create an AI-powered customer support solution that understands context, responds with empathy, and solves complex problems?». So, our vision was to transform customer service and create an autonomous AI that felt more like a human than a machine. Siena is already changing the everyday lives of customer service teams and consumers, but this is just the beginning. Our recent funding enables us to continue pushing the boundaries by making empathic AI the very backbone of modern CX. This pivotal moment marks not just an expansion but a redefinition of the customer service industry", said Andrei Negrau, the Co-founder and CEO of Siena.

 

The co-founders are fervently committed to advancing Siena's autonomous capabilities and integrations while executing a bold global expansion plan. Central to this strategy is enhancing its product suite, which is achieved by attracting elite talent in product development and go-to-market roles.

The company has a fully remote team of 23 people distributed across the globe and is actively seeking professionals in areas such as engineering, operations, product development, and go-to-market.

Siena works with dozens of e-commerce brands such as Kitsch, Simple Modern, Verb, or K18, from beauty, health and nutrition, food and beverage, and fashion.

 

Plans to launch its own learning hub: Siena AI Academy

Siena transforms customer service at scale for mid-market and enterprise e-commerce businesses, generating additional revenue, automating support tickets, and significantly reducing response and resolution times. Some of its notable achievements include $46,340 in additional revenue for Kitsch, 79% of support tickets automated for Simple Modern, a 60% drop in first response time, and a 45% drop in resolution time for Everyday Dos.

 

The founders plan to launch Siena AI Academy in Q1 2024, a learning hub to get teams up to speed on how to integrate AI into their customer service workflows. The curriculum is focused on

courses like "Building an AI Agent 101", "Emotional Intelligence in AI", and "The CX Metrics that

Matter".

The information provided by KomuniK

Read in full - click here
Romanian PM reportedly opposes further extension of food price capping mechanism

Romania’s prime minister Ilie Bolojan reportedly opposes the idea of further prolonging the price-capping mechanism introduced in August 2023 and repeatedly extended so far, according to Ziarul Financiar. Ambiguous statements over the weekend indicated an incipient conflict among the ruling coalition’s...

Union leaders meet Romanian prime minister after protest against staff cuts

Several thousand civil servants rallied in Bucharest on September 15 to oppose government reform plans that would reduce public administration staff, Radio Romania Actualități reported. Protesters gathered in Victoriei Square before marching to the Palace of Parliament,...

Moldova launches new stock exchange with support from Bucharest Stock Exchange

A memorandum establishing a new stock exchange in the Republic of Moldova was signed on September 15 in Chișinău, with the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BVB) set to play a key role as shareholder and technology partner, according to Bursa.ro. The new Moldovan exchange will run...

Budget of special pensions in Romania up 16% y/y to EUR 340 mln in 2024

The “service pensions”, also known as special pensions, paid to civilians (military not included in the report), cost the state budget and the state social insurance budget a total of RON 2.2 billion in 2024, over 22% more than in 2023,

Czech Tesla officially abandons plans for EUR 90 mln factory in Romania

The Czech company Tesla has officially announced to the government and local authorities that it is abandoning the project to build the energy storage factory in Brăila, an investment of EUR 90 million that was also to receive state aid, according to

Romania's wage growth eroded by inflation in July

Romanian households' purchasing power has deteriorated in July, both as a result of slower nominal advance (+5.2% y/y, the weakest in four years) but also because of a sharp rise in inflation (7.68% y/y) following the VAT rate hike, according to data published by the statistics office INS. The average net wage dropped by 3.0% […]