PayPal Ventures has announced the completion of Rasa’s $30m Series C funding round, which it co-led with StepStone Group.
The global corporate venture arm of PayPal joined Rasa’s round as the venture firm’s first AI investment, marking the launch of its new AI Fund to invest in early stage AI startups “across all industries and verticals”.
Rasa, a generative conversational AI platform, powers two of the world’s three top banks, major insurers, and global travel and hospitality companies, plus others and has been downloaded more than 50 million times by developers.
The AI company has said that it will use the funding to “grow its team”, which is dedicated to reshaping the future of AI assistants as well as strengthening its market presence.
Melissa Gordon, CEO at Rasa, commented: “This investment accelerates our lead in the market, and fuels our drive to redefine what is possible for businesses using generative AI-powered chat and voice platforms at scale.
“With our technology, we’re well-positioned to transform how businesses interact with their customers, making every conversation impactful and personal. We will use the funding to advance our technological leadership and strengthen our market presence.”
Rasa’s mission is to ‘empower global brands’ with advanced conversational AI, launching Rasa Pro and Rasa Studio with CALM (Conversational AI with Language Models). These innovations blend the flexibility of Large Language Models (LLMs) with traditional chatbots’ control, ensuring natural interactions while streamlining development and reducing costs
Dr. Alan Nichol, Rasa Co-Founder and CTO, stated: “At Rasa we’ve reinvented how conversational AI works. While many in the industry claim to incorporate generative AI, often it’s merely an addition of LLMs onto their existing platforms.”
It has been a year of firsts when it comes to investments for PayPal, after it announced its first stablecoin investment last month, investing in Mesh.
“We are thrilled to mark the launch of our AI Fund with our investment in Rasa,” added Alan Du, partner of PayPal Ventures. “We believe Rasa offers a best-in-class platform for enterprises to develop robust, conversational AI, and we have seen how its concierge solutions improve customer engagement and business performance.”
