Landbot is a Spanish startup, born on Product Hunt just over a year ago, that doesn’t use AI to chat, but rather has pre-selected inputs for customers to chose from. TechCrunch calls it an “an old school ‘choose your adventure’ interaction.”
The round was led by European venture capital firm Nauta Capital, Encomenda VC and Bankinter participated.
Delighted to welcome @Landbot_io aboard as we lead their $2.2M round for its on-message 'anti-AI' chatbot @techcrunch pic.twitter.com/DbCopksZpo
— NautaCapital (@NautaCapital) July 19, 2018
“By focusing on the SME (micro, small and medium-sized enterprises) market, Landbot’s addressable market size is estimated to be more than €17b at a time when most small and medium-sized businesses are faced with poorly performing websites, low conversion rates, and limited resources to invest in the costly AI-powered chatbots,” writes Sam Ahmed of Nauta Capital on Medium. “It’s for this reason that Landbot, has been able to achieve virility and traction which caught Nauta’s eye.”
According to Zapier, a web-based service that helps users integrates the apps they use, Landbot is one of the 10 fastest growing new apps on the platform.
Landbot is a simple, barebones chat bot built for businesses that strips everything down to the basics. Some say this is exactly the type of tech that is needed in the industry now, others say not so much.
Landbot customer StarClinch, an Indian artist and entertainment booking platform, posted about their experience with Landbot after using the bot on their website. In this case, they found that not many people gave out their email to the chatbot and an even smaller amount actually stayed until the end of the conversation.
“Seeing a slow moving chat interface, with no indicator of progress is a subtle threat to them. They fear it. They don’t have time for it. Simple,” writes Jasdev Singh from StarClinch. “This type of audience is known as fleeting audience, and they will fear using anything that they have not seen before.”
According to Futurism, this may be just what is needed in an industry that’s saturated with tech giants and startups alike trying to build the best and most complex chatbots.
“The world is obsessed with achieving perfect artificial intelligence, and the growing AI chatbot market is no different. So obsessed in fact, it’s driving users away — growing disillusionment, frustration, and rage are undermining tech companies’ efforts,” writes Victor Tangermann of Futurism. “And this obsession might be doing far more harm than good. It’s simple: people are happiest when they get the results they expect. Added complexity or lofty promises of “true AI” will end up pushing them away if it doesn’t actually end up helping them.”
