Swirl, a pioneering video commerce company that enables brands to grow and engage consumers using AI-powered short videos and livestreaming that has interactive and human-like capabilities, announced the successful closure of its $1.1 million seed funding round.
The company will use the investment to meet its surging global customer demand and grow its GTM and Product teams with a particular focus on the Middle East region, according to a media release.
The company was founded in 2021 in India by Kaizad Hansotia and Bheshaj Joshi. It has offices in India, and is gearing up to now open offices in Dubai and USA to expand its global presence.
Swirl counts top brands as its clients across the globe such as Puma, VIVO, PanHomes, Momstore, Homesrus, GkHair, and LG, and has demonstrated strong use cases across D2C, Retail, Auto, Fintech, and all major consumer categories on the backdrop of increased investments being made in D2C, CX and digital transformation. Post integration with Swirl, companies have generally seen a 3X increase in ecommerce conversions, with over 40% higher ROAS, 35% engagement rate, and an average 13X ROI.
The funding round was led by Shastra VC (formerly Veda VC), a prominent venture capital fund, with significant participation from accomplished angel investors from India, Middle East, and USA, including Aakrit Vaish (CEO Haptik), Shan Krishnasamy (Ex-CTO Freshworks), Mohammed Dewji (CEO MeTL) and others.
“We have already built a strong validation with global brands across India, Middle East and Europe. With the funding, we plan to enter the $100+ billion Middle East and US markets while strengthening our product suite,” said Kaizad Hansotia, Founder CEO Swirl.
Swirl is set to revolutionize user engagement by incorporating deep AI integration to systematically extract contextual insights from videos at scale, the press release added. This initiative aims to offer more personalised and relevant video content, ultimately enhancing the user experience. Additionally, it is expected to boost Search Engine Optimization (SEO) by attracting new organic traffic through improved metadata.
Bheshaj Joshi, Co-Founder and CTO of Swirl, highlighted the company's goal, stating, “98% of visitors on any ecommerce website or app don't convert, and we are here to fix that. By harnessing the power of AI using video context metadata and LLM, Swirl will be able to drive quantifiable sales uplift, creating a seamless and personalized customer experience that is 10X better than what you see today.”
Swirl also plans to leverage video context metadata to refine and train a large language model (LLM) based chatbot accessible from within the video itself. This dynamic agent, available 24x7, aims to assist with sales, deliver instant product recommendations, and entice users with product add-ons and bundle offers.
Venus Dhuria, Partner at Shastra VC, said, “Swirl taps into the trillion-dollar global video commerce market with a unique approach to building a global leader in enterprise and SaaS from India. Their differentiated product, frugal mindset, and relentless focus on business fundamentals position them well for scaling up across global markets.”
