Miyu chats with SME owners and investors 24/7 on all crowdfunding queries and more
Singapore, 27 September 2017 – Funding Societies, Singapore’s and Southeast Asia’s leading digital lending platform, has announced the launch of its chatbot Miyu on its website (fundingsocieties.com). This is the first such chatbot created by a crowdfunding company in Southeast Asia. Miyu works round the clock to answer queries that a business owner or an investor may ask about the products and services offered by Funding Societies. Interestingly, Miyu was created by Ishan Agrawal, a NRI based in Singapore with two interns, from Singapore and Indonesia respectively, along with bot platforms meya.ai and api.ai using natural language processing techniques.
“Singapore is witnessing some world class Fintech innovation. I am proud to have contributed to it, in a small way, by building the first crowdfunding chatbot with my team in Southeast Asia. I came here 10 years ago for my undergraduate education and stayed for the determination Singapore has shown in becoming a global hub for innovation.” said Agrawal who is also the Head of Data Science at Funding Societies. He hails from Dehradun, the schooling capital of India. He graduated from National University of Singapore and at Stanford University in US with a joint degree in Business and Computing.
Kelvin Teo, co-founder and CEO of Funding Societies shared, “Since inception, we’ve promised to help SMEs and investors through crowdfunding and innovation. Our chatbot is another step in innovation and aims to deliver almost human-like customer experience 24/7.” By engaging in an interactive and light-hearted way, Funding Societies aims to increase the awareness and confidence of crowdfunding amongst retail investors, thereby helping them reach their personal financial goals through alternative finance.
Funding Societies was the winner of the Fintech Award in SME category given by Monetary Authority of Singapore (November 2016) and recognized as one of the Top 250 FinTech companies globally by CB Insights earlier this year. It was also recognised as the Best in Customer Experience for Alternative Financial Services in Asia by Retail Banker International and named 2017’s No. 1 Hottest Startup in Singapore by Singapore Business Review.
Miyu talks candidly and engages in social chatter with interesting and funny answers, while escalating difficult queries to human support whenever required, giving users a seamless and pleasant experience. The future plans for Miyu include acting as a Virtual Relationship Manager who can help investors navigate through the platform, perform account opening and management activities such as investments, deposits, withdrawals, etc. as well as initiate video chats with real customer experience managers, without human intervention at any time of the day. Direct loan application or connecting with account managers are also part of the plans for business owners.
About Funding Societies
Founded in early 2015, Funding Societies is a licensed digital lending platform that connects small-medium enterprises (“SMEs”) with retail and institutional investors. It has achieved numerous milestones in just 2 years, including a S$10M Series A led by Sequoia India and expansion into Indonesia and Malaysia. Funding Societies is one of the largest digital lending platforms in the region, with the vision of funding underserved SMEs and improving societies in Southeast Asia.
Visit our website at fundingsocieties.com