When Nicolás Camhi, Matías Pérez Pefaur and Diego Chahuán (pictured above, left to right) launched Vambe last year, they were building a CRM for debt collection. But despite gaining traction, they soon realized that their customers were not as interested in their debt collection product as the WhatsApp AI agents Vambe had built to facilitate it.
“Our customers were already asking us, ‘Hey, could you ask the AI so that when you go out after a debt, could you offer this person, I don’t know, “x” product or ‘”x” service?’” Camhi told TechCrunch. “We were able to do it, and it was a very great experience. We realized that what we were building was not a collection system but a communication and engagement tool.”
The Santiago, Chile-based company pivoted in March 2024 to focus on these AI agents, aimed to help small and medium-sized businesses automate communications with customers and close sales on platforms like WhatsApp.
Vambe’s customers range from small mom-and-pop businesses, like carpet cleaners with five employees, to retail companies that have thousands of workers. Camhi said the company had annual recurring revenue (ARR) of about $20,000 right before it pivoted, but since March, that number has surged: Vambe closed November with ARR of $1 million.
To capitalize on this fast growth, Vambe recently raised a $3.85 million seed round led by Brazil-based VC firm, Monashees, with participation from Mexico-based investor Nazca and U.S.-based M13. Camhi said that 15% of Vambe’s revenue is currently generated in Mexico and his team sought out Nazca because the company wants to expand further in that country.
This round was M13’s first investment in a Latin American startup. M13 partner Brent Murri told TechCrunch that the firm started building its thesis on the region two years ago, but hadn’t found the right company, team or terms to invest until they met Vambe’s team at the Berkeley Skydek accelerator earlier this year.
Murri noted M13 was bullish on Vambe’s tech, illustrating his point with an example: The VC firm’s team had built a fake business and used Vambe to set up an AI agent, and came away impressed with how quickly they were able to do so.
“When I look at LatAm companies, I’m like, what is the carbon copy in the U.S.,” Murri said. “With Vambe, I saw the opposite. There is nothing quite like this. AI agents for sales and marketing in the U.S. is very crowded, I get that, but the actual SMB and enterprise adoption, and consumer willingness to adopt AI products is actually much higher [in LatAm] than the U.S. and other parts of the world.”
The reason for this affinity towards sales tech is because business in Latin America is much more conversational than transactional, unlike in the U.S., Camhi said.
“It’s kind of a cultural thing,” Camhi said. “Here in LatAm, we really like to talk. People with companies, they don’t just engage and buy something directly from a web page. They try to reach out. They want someone to help them. They want to understand pricing. They want to understand delivery. And all of that kind of communication is something super hard to scale.”
Of course, Vambe is not the only company building WhatsApp AI applications for businesses in LatAm. For one, Mercately, based in Ecuador, is building the back-end tech companies need to communicate with customers and sell directly to them through WhatsApp.
In the U.S., there are several companies building conversational AI agents for businesses. Bret Taylor’s Sierra is one that recently raised a $175 million round. ElevenLabs is another that has raised more than $100 million in total venture capital. Voiceflow is a smaller entrant that has raised more than $39 million in VC.
Beyond its ambitions in Mexico, Vambe is looking to cater to Spanish-speaking businesses in the U.S., build out its team, and continue developing its tech.
“We are putting extremely advanced technology in the hands of businesses that don’t even know how to prompt,” Camhi said. “They are really increasing their sales and reducing their costs. I think that is super, super important.”