Zapia, an AI executive assistant on WhatsApp for Latin America, raised $7.25 million as an extension of its seed funding totaling $12.35 million (a seed stage amount that nods to the prosperous days of venture capital).
The round is led by Prosus Ventures, one of the world’s largest technology and e-commerce investors. Also participating are Endeavor Catalyst (led by LinkedIn’s Reid Hoffman); Anthos Capital, Factory HQ and SnR.
Originally from Uruguay, Zapia is an artificial intelligence (AI) assistant on Whatsapp. It is used by more than 3.5 million users across the region.
“I come from Uruguay, a country of only 3 million people, so seeing Zapia surpass that number of users shows how deeply the solution resonates. Our mission is to use AI to help Latin Americans save time, save money and live better,” said Juan Pablo Pereira, CEO and co-founder of Zapia in a statement.
Juan Pablo Pereira has been an Endeavor entrepreneur since 2018 and also founder of Tiendamia, a crossborder e-commerce startup founded in 2015. His first venture now generates nine-figure sales in 10 countries.
His second venture is Zapia, which was founded in April 2023. The tool helps people — for free — find products and services, manage tasks, set reminders, summarize content and more, through a chat interface. In addition, the company has apps for iOS and Android, with more than half a million downloads so far.
It originated as a tool for answering questions and transcribing audio messages for free. Today, Zapia can browse the web on behalf of the user, interpret images and PDF files, write content, set WhatsApp reminders, schedule messages, among other features.
Revolutionizing with AI
Zapia claims that its team includes one of the most experienced AI teams in Latin America.
In addition to Juan Pablo Pereira, the team is made up of Nicolás Loeff (CTO), based in Silicon Valley, who has a PhD in Machine Learning, is a Fulbright scholar and previously led AI teams for Google. He has been working in AI and Machine Learning for the past 15 years.
Other members of the team are Martín Alcalá Rubí -who has been building AI companies such as TryoLabs and MonkeyLearn for 15 years-, Juan Olloniego -Machine Learning master, formerly at Landing AI and TryoLabs-, as well as Pablo Rodríguez Bocca, PhD in Computer Science, formerly at Antel.
Looking ahead, Zapia will soon introduce a new capability: an AI agent designed to automate real-world tasks in the real world
to automate real-world tasks directly through WhatsApp, the tool will include solutions in reservations and price comparison.
