A company that has made strong advances in automating the service processes segment is Swedish AI company Ebbot. Recently, they attended tech event Slush in Helsinki, where they took part in Nordea Investor Speed Dating. “It had a tangible impact for us,” explains Axel Hellström at Ebbot.
The forward-leaning growth company Ebbot has gone from strength to strength in recent years. As early adopters in making AI a core part of the business, they have been fleet-footed as developments have taken off.
“We’ve been working on the productisation of AI solutions since 2018, but the company really had a rebirth when generative AI emerged. We had the right timing and conditions to quickly launch a product that meets both the security requirements and scalability needs of some of the world’s largest companies. Against that backdrop, we’ve seen our growth explode over the past year,” comments Axel Hellström, co-founder of Ebbot.
Ebbot is primarily geared to companies that handle a large volume of service, and its client list spans everything from retail companies to telecom operators and hotel chains.
The bigger the volume, the greater the efficiencies we can enable.
“The bigger the volume, the greater the efficiencies we can enable,” says Axel Hellström. He also explains that Ebbot’s goal is to become the key system for automating service processes – both to gain deeper insights and in contacts with employees and consumers. In the autumn, they released their own API, which was a milestone.
“With our new API, our customers can connect to our AI models and create their own solutions. This, combined with the fact that we’re European – and that no data leaves Europe – is of great value to our customers.”
Recently, Ebbot attended the annual tech event Slush in Helsinki where they took part in Nordea Investor Speed Dating – an opportunity for growth companies in search of capital to talk and pitch to several potential – and pre-selected – investors.
“We were delighted that Nordea offered us the opportunity to take part in its Investor Speed Dating. This gave us the chance to meet some of the world’s leading investors in AI,” explains Axel Hellström.
For Ebbot, it was of great importance that potential investors had deep insight into AI, in order for discussions to be fruitful and to pave the way for potential future collaboration.
“While investors wanted to get a clearer picture of what we’re doing and where we're going, we were keen to meet investors that could offer not only financial backing, but also contribute strategically. They need to really understand what we do and where we want to go, as we’re a fairly advanced AI company that has had AI at its core for a long time.”
We probably didn’t meet anyone who wasn’t interested in what we do, and now we’re engaged in many interesting dialogues.
And, taking part in the speed-dating event bore fruit.
“We probably didn’t meet anyone who wasn’t interested in what we do, and now we’re engaged in many interesting dialogues”, says Axel Hellström.
For entrepreneurs that are about to raise capital and meet investors going forward, there are several Investor Speed Dating opportunities coming up during the year. In order to improve your chances of becoming one of the selected companies, Axel Hellström has some tips:
“Have a good dialogue with Nordea so that they understand the kind of investors you’re looking for. Be clear about how you want to grow your company and make sure you have an understanding of the markets you want to enter.”
Philip Carpel, Growth Banker at Nordea Startup & Growth, also stresses the importance of creating a sharp and engaging pitch.
“Bring a really good vibe.”
“Keep it brief and concise. Describe clearly the problem that you are solving and why your particular solution is unique. Show that there’s demand and growth potential for your product or service. Explain how you generate revenue and why you’re the right people to drive the company forward. Also, describe how the capital will be used. And last but not least, bring a really good vibe.”
Nordea’s specialist unit Nordea Startup & Growth does a thorough job when it comes to matching the right investor with the right entrepreneur, so being selected for speed-dating saves a lot of time for both parties. Philip Carpel also stresses that the meetings themselves can generate a highly positive ripple effect.
“Besides being able to access capital and networks faster, it’s about meetings between people. And, meetings can be magical, and generate very many good reverberations.”