SA’s FinChatBot expands to France with a layover in Kenya

FinChatBot, a chatbot for financial services, has recently expanded into France, attracting interest from the Kenyan market.

Founded last year after a market study conducted by startup incubator Far Ventures, FinChatBot allows businesses to engage with their customers in real-time via their preferred communication channel.

FinChatBot CEO Antoine Paillusseau spoke to Ventureburn recently on the company’s latest development in France and Kenya.

“We were introduced to a potential client (in Kenya). When we met them they were quite excited about the product. We haven’t signed any contract yet, we’re still busy discussing with them, but our solution had a lot of interest.”

Although the chatbot service has courted attention in Kenya, it isn’t fully expanding into the market.

“We’re not properly expanding in a sense of opening up an office in Kenya, but a first client is already a good sign and we will continue on that route slowly and steadily,” said Paillusseau.

For France however, it’s a different story according to Paillusseau. Since he hails from the country, there’s already an established network which has enabled the team to work closely with a re-insurer, Scor.

Aside from financial services, FinChatBot has room to expand to different markets

“We haven’t raised money for our international expansion, we’re really starting slowly in a sense of lowering the expenses and just trying to have our proof of concept in order to scale the business,” said Paillusseau.

Paillusseau also mentioned that the company will only place a dedicated team once it has secured three to five clients in a country.

“We have a business developer in France that started there recently, but the majority of the team remains in SA,” he said.

According to Paillusseau, even though the company’s core business is focused on financial industries, the way they’ve structured and built the technology allows them to have a wider approach to other markets.

“We’ve already got a lot of feedback from other industries such as travel, advertising or a wider range of clients. We don’t want to focus on this now because we feel that we still want to become the experts in the financial industry,” said the founder.

Even though FinChatBot has kept a keen eye on other markets, it still hasn’t forgotten its local one here in SA.

“On our portfolio, we have three clients on board that have signed contracts, we are still discussing with five or six different clients from banking to insurance and lenders,” said Paillusseau.

Paillusseau has also mentioned that the future plans for FinChatBot are to have their first bots live in two weeks for two different clients.

Once the bots are live, the chatbot company will have access to statistics on SA audiences reactions and habits, allowing the company to present the data to their clients.