STAVANGER, Norway , Feb. 15, 2018 /PRNewswire/ — Boost.ai, provider of some of the world’s most robust chatbots and virtual assistants, today announced the closing of a new round of financing from Alliance Venture. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed, but the deal will potentially inject up to 5 million dollars into the company. The company ownership will remain firmly in the hands of the founders and employees, who still retain more than two thirds of the company.

“The investment comes at a very exciting time for boost.ai and will enable us to expand internationally, at greater pace. After acquiring several major clients in recent months, we have identified several areas in which to strengthen our operations, helping us meet the demands of our rapidly growing customer base. It will also help us continue our cutting-edge research on natural language processing,” said Lars Ropeid Selsås, founder and CEO of boost.ai.

“Superior virtual assistant”

The financing will be used to strengthen the technical and commercial teams within boost.ai, and to support expansion beyond Scandinavia, where the company enjoys significant commercial success and holds a substantial market share.

Johan Gjesdahl, Partner at Alliance Venture, said: “Lars and his team have developed a superior virtual assistant in the James platform, combined with an impressive ability to deliver their product to exacting customers. Our diligence calls confirm this – it is seldom we see such strong customer satisfaction with both a product and the team that delivers it. We are very happy to back such an exceptional team and are looking forward to help growing boost.ai outside the Nordics.”

Rapid expansion

Boost.ai was incorporated in May 2016, and secured its first customer in December of the same year. Since then, boost.ai has secured deals with more than 40 major organizations, including leading Scandinavian companies such as Telenor, Nordea, Sparebank 1, Santander and Storebrand. Additionally, boost.ai has become the prime supplier of chatbots for local governments, with over 20 Scandinavian municipalities signing up to provide their citizens with digital guidance through virtual assistants. The boost.ai team has grown from 6 to over 50 members of staff in the same period.

About Boost AI AS

Boost.ai is a Norwegian software company that specializes in artificial intelligence (AI) and building virtual assistants for enterprise. The company was founded in 2016 by Lars Ropeid Selsås, Henry Vaage Iversen and Hadle Ropeid Selsås.

Boost.ai has developed James®; a market-leading platform for virtual assistants. Over 40 major companies and organizations – among them many of the biggest banks in Scandinavia – currently employ a virtual assistant that was built on the James® platform.

Thanks to the James® platform’s market-leading natural language processing (NLP) algorithms, the virtual assistants understand what users are asking about, even if they use slang, dialects or have made spelling mistakes. Boost.ai constantly researches and develops cutting-edge features and improves its unique algorithms to ensure that their virtual assistants remain the most robust in the world.

Together with its partners, boost.ai delivers virtual assistants to companies and organizations that are ready to adopt the next generation of customer service. Boost.ai is leading the charge for worldwide virtual assistants and will always push the boundaries of what is possible for the digital employees of the future.

Boost.ai is currently recruiting to a number of exciting positions, including a Full Stack Developer, Python Software Engineer, and a Data Scientist (NLP expert).

About Alliance Venture AS

Alliance Venture is a Norwegian venture capital firm investing in early stage technology companies at the seed and series-A stage. Founded in 2001, Alliance Venture currently has €100 million under management, predominantly invested in SaaS companies. With offices in Oslo and Silicon Valley, Alliance Venture invests in excellent teams, contributing to their international expansion.

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SOURCE Boost AI AS