Participated · Equity · Jun 2023

Spectrm offers a no-code conversational marketing automation platform that enables brands to convert customers and drive revenue via social messaging channels. Led by CEO Max Koziolek, the company has been a multi-year Meta and Google enterprise messaging partner and launched on Messenger when it opened for businesses. Spectrm has patented two domain-specific NLP applications using generative networks (2020) and has integrated GPT into its product since GPT-2, continuously upgrading model integrations for brand-safe conversational commerce. Its partner ecosystem includes Zendesk, Jellyfish, WPP, and Accenture Interactive, and its customer roster features Uber, HelloFresh, Volkswagen, Premier League, and Pandora. The company plans to use new funding to expand its brand-ready AI tools and deepen CRM integrations to increase conversion and capture zero-party data. Spectrm aims to leverage those capabilities as the basis for consumer lifecycle, segmentation, and retention marketing. Spectrm offers an AI-driven conversational marketing platform that automates conversations on messaging and social channels to engage and convert customers. The platform uses an AI algorithm to collect behavioral data that marketers can use to segment audiences and build stronger customer relationships. Spectrm cites enterprise customers including eBay, Ford, Groupon, Renault, and KLM. The company positions conversational marketing as a high-ROI channel with far higher engagement than email on messaging platforms. Leadership frames the product as combining the human experience of conversation with the reach of the largest platforms. Competitors named in the article include LivePerson, ManyChat, Snaps.io, Automat.ai, and Chatfuel. Spectrm is a Berlin-based startup that delivers news via messaging platforms such as Facebook Messenger, Slack, and Telegram on behalf of publishers. Since launching in the summer of 2015, it has provided a CMS interface that lets publishers customize and distribute content for messaging without any coding, including GIFs, videos, and other rich media. Spectrm’s technology conducts conversational interactions—using user responses and click behavior—to continue serving relevant content at the right time and has given publishers engagement insights (for example, time-of-day engagement patterns). Publishers can market the feature to their audiences via direct messages to their Facebook pages or by adding a subscribe button on their sites. The company operates under a SaaS model with publishers paying a base fee of $195/month and is in business with more than 50 publishers, including Business Insider, NowThis and Bild. Spectrm has raised a total of $1.5 million from North Base Media, Lerer Hippeau Ventures, Axel Springer, BDMI and angel investor Jens Schumann.

Led · Series A · Aug 2021

Bank North (formerly Commercial and Northern Ltd, established 2018) is being developed to serve the UK business lending market with a focus on SMEs. Its model uses seamlessly integrated, cloud-native banking technology that powers a network of regional "pods" where experienced bankers deliver locally decided and locally delivered lending. The bank says this de-centralised approach will allow it to tailor lending to each customer and provide committed finance up to ten times faster than the industry standard. Bank North received an Authorised with Restrictions (AWR) banking licence from the UK Prudential Regulatory Authority and plans to open its first lending pod in Manchester later in the year, with lending due to start in October 2021 and a managed roll-out across the UK thereafter. The recently closed Series A funding round will support further development of its technology and provide operating capital to kick off lending activities. No operating revenue or user metrics for Bank North are disclosed in the articles.