The idea of corporate gifts to maintain customer relationships is not a new concept. In fact, there’s a cottage industry of ‘donation-as-a-service’ startups that promise to streamline the task, ranging from companies like Reachdesk and &Open to Sendoso and Goody. Sellers say their industry is profitable (worth an estimated $258 billion) because evidence suggests corporate giveaways work. A study found that 66% of people who received a promotional product or gift could remember the brand that sent it, and 79% would be likely to do business with the company again.
But according to Rabi Gupta, the co-founder of Evabot, there’s “a lot of clutter” in the corporate gifting space. He argues that many salespeople do little more than send out company-branded promotional items like T-shirts and thermoses, which don’t exactly drive loyalty. In a recent survey, companies cited the inability to buy from multiple brands, inventory and storage management, and limited product range as their top gifting challenges.
Evabot itself is a supplier. But Gupta says the company’s AI-based approach, which uses a chatbot to ask potential gift recipients about their tastes, preferences and lifestyle in order to personalize gifts, is more effective than the mostly.
Investors agree. Today Evabot announced that it has raised $10.83 million in a funding round led by Comcast Ventures with participation from Alumni Ventures, Bloomberg Beta, Precursor Ventures, Forefront Venture Partners and Silicon Valley Bank. Gupta said the product will be used to scale Evabot’s operations, product development and growth, as well as its investments in AI to create “fully automated” giving experiences.
“Every business really wants to ‘know’ their customers and employees so they can create thoughtful experiences and touchpoints. Every business cares about building relationships, but they have to do it at scale,” Gupta told TechCrunch via email. “Since most of us are now remote, businesses need a better way to connect with their customers and employees.”
Picture credits: Evabot
Gupta co-launched Evabot, formerly called Vizzi, in 2016 with Satwick Saxena, Ashish Kumar, and Akshay Gupta shortly after immigrating to the United States. Prior to Evabot, Rabi Gupta, Kumar and Akshay Gupta worked together at India-based iCouchApp. , a social app for chatting about TV shows and channels.
Like other corporate gifting platforms, Evabot offers a range of gifting services from holiday and birthday gifts to employee onboarding items. To automatically fill in details such as names and contact details, Evabot connects to customer relationship and HR systems such as Salesforce and Workday. Once recipients have completed a questionnaire sent via the aforementioned chatbot, Evabot automatically selects and sends the gift, along with a handwritten note.
Evabot’s rival, Alyce, also uses AI to connect to various apps and track relationships to personalize gift recommendations. But Rabi Gupta says Evabot leverages AI in different ways, not just for gift suggestions.
Rabi Gupta tells TechCrunch that the business model is a combination of software-as-a-service subscriptions and giveaway revenue. It’s the pricing that has proven attractive – Evabot has shipped over 125,000 unique gifts to date for over 1,000 customers, including health services giant Cigna. Most of the freebies come from direct-to-consumer “craft” brands and local sellers, says Rabi Gupta.
But what about future growth? The corporate gifts market had a rosy outlook as of 2020, when a survey found that 54% of companies planned to increase their investments in gifts over the next two years. Although Rabi Gupta admits he has seen a “slowdown”, the co-founders of Evabot believe the company is able to operate despite the headwinds.
“There is definitely a short-term downturn [in the corporate gifting space] as companies slow down hiring… But overall we’re seeing very strong interest from companies keen to build long-term relationships,” Rabi Gupta said. “Before raising our Series A, we were profitable. Right now we have two years of track, and the idea is to achieve 4x profitability and scale in the next 18 months.
Evabot has raised a total of $13.83 million in capital to date, which includes a previously undisclosed $3 million seed round. The company employs 60 people in offices in San Francisco, Dallas and cities across Canada and India, a headcount that Rabi Gupta aims to increase to 70 by the end of the year.
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