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Conversational commerce isn’t exactly a new phenomenon, with countless companies using live chats, messaging apps, chatbots, voice assistants, and more to encourage users to part with their money. As part of that broader movement, the mighty WhatsApp has become a dominant force in the messaging world as it moves into the commerce arena, using a myriad of tools to connect retailers with customers — from product catalogs and collections to shopping carts and Instagram shop integrations.
China’s WeChat is reported to have spent $250 billion in transactions in 2020 alone. But while buying internal messaging apps is par for the course in many markets around the world, particularly in Asia and Latin America, it hasn’t caught on in Europe – and that’s something German startup Charles wants to do. Transform key conversational business segments with a platform that connects newsletter marketing capabilities.
Two years after launching, Charles announced that it had raised $20 million in Series A funding led by Salesforce Ventures, with participation from Accel and HV Capital. This follows a $6.5 million seed round of funding it raised last year.
How it works
In the year Founded in Berlin in 2019, Charles positions itself as a complete, end-to-end backend and interface, connecting APIs from messaging services like WhatsApp to popular ecommerce and CRM (customer relationship management) systems like Shopify and Salesforce. Then, businesses can sell products, send newsletters, and provide ongoing support.
Charles stage in action
While a sales and service feature is expected from any chat business software, the newsletter feature is an interesting addition. A WhatsApp newsletter can include a discount, special offer, product announcement or video message – but importantly, it’s for the medium it’s consumed in (i.e. the messaging app) rather than the traditional email-format.
Newsletters are essentially one-to-many “broadcasts” that can be sent to an unlimited number of recipients at once, unless they’re accessible via an API – a standard broadcast is limited to 256 people on WhatsApp. On top of that, retailers can use the Charles platform to access performance analytics to show how WhatsApp newsletters are growing across opt-in flows (such as clicking a button or scanning a QR code on a website). participation.
WhatsApp newsletter: incentive to subscribe
Conversational business comes to Europe
A quick glance shows the flurry of activity in the conversational commerce space around the world, with the likes of Whym, Zeals, Yalo and Wizard all recently raising funds to target Asian or American markets. Elsewhere, Vonage picked up Singapore-based chat business company Jumper.
This hints at how Charles is different – he wants to replicate the success of these other companies in markets closer to home. And that’s what the new $20 million cash injection will be used for, apparently to expand its horizons beyond its home country of Germany.
One point to note is that Charles built the platform with European data privacy laws (ie GDPR) strictly in mind. With the WhatsApp newsletter, for example, Charles offers customers a double opt-in after they have indicated that they want to receive WhatsApp messages – so the customer is asked to sign up for the newsletter (first opt-in) and then. A second time to make sure this is what you want. And this is all automatic.
“Targeting Europe, one of our key features is that we have built-in GDPR compliance from the start,” Charles Co-Founder and CEO Artjem Weisbeck told TechCrunch.
Charles says it’s GDPR compliant.
Not everyone is happy to find targeted marketing and advertising landing in their WhatsApp inbox every day, and that’s why Charles focuses on opt-in/opt-out workflows. It is not the same as email, and should be treated accordingly.
“To be GDPR compliant, brands require your initial opt-in for notifications, but you can opt-out at any time,” Weissbeck continued. “That’s why we help brands with automated opt-in and opt-out technology, and our success team advises on the frequency and relevance of notifications. Unlike email, they need to be low-frequency and high-relevance to respect the intimacy of the channel and maintain consumer trust. On average, this means one to two campaigns per month.” it is.”
Although Charles has seen the most demand domestically in the German market, he has seen some inbound demand from Italy, Spain, France, the Netherlands and the UK and sees himself expanding into other markets in the longer term.
Founder and CEO Andreas Tüssing added: “These are the countries we’ve started expanding into, and more than 20% of our customers come from there – especially Italy and the UK. “Our ultimate ambition is global, and we choose to partner with companies outside of Europe.”
In its relatively short life so far, some of its hundred-plus customers have hit 7-figure WhatsApp revenue this year, representing up to 40% of their total sales, he said. But Charles recognizes that while WhatsApp is the leading messaging platform in Europe, it’s not the only player in town – that’s why it supports Instagram Direct and Facebook Messenger, as well as Telegram, iMessage, RCS, Google MyBusiness Chat, and SMS.
“However, most businesses in Europe focus on WhatsApp because consumer penetration is high, rich formats are advanced, and API capabilities for business are very advanced,” Tussing said.
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