Siena, a New York-based startup that develops AI agents for consumer brands, has raised $17 million in its Series A round, with York IE as the lead investor. The new capital raised brings the company’s total funding to $29.7 million.
Moreover, Joyance Ventures took part in the round as a new investor, and the existing investors, Aglaé Ventures, Sierra Ventures, and the Super Angel Fund, also did so.
Siena was founded by Andrei Negrau, the company’s chief executive, and Lisa Popovici, its president, both of whom are from Romania.
They began with a single AI agent that responds to customer service inquiries for online shops. Since that time, it has developed agents to carry out other kinds of jobs.
The Shopping Agent answers questions about products and helps people to make purchases without having to leave the chat, and the Social Agent responds to comments and direct messages on social media. A voice agent for use with phone calls is also being developed.
The funds being raised will be used to develop more agents that can act independently, as well as to create the shared system that connects them. This is what Siena refers to as its Agent of Record.
In reality, it combines a brand’s orders, subscriptions, reviews, and previous customer chats so that each agent knows what the others have learned.
For instance, if a customer returns a product because it didn’t fit, the shopping agent can take that into account the next time. Negrau states that most customer software is divided into separate tools for support, social, and marketing.
“The customer is not particularly interested in your org chart,” he said.
The company states that hundreds of brands use its software, including SPANX, FIGS, HexClad, and Comfrt, and that its agents can handle up to 80% of customer interactions.
York IE, the team that won the round, has the potential to grow well beyond the level of support.
“We believe Siena can become as essential to running a brand as its commerce platform,” said Tom Holahan, a general partner at York IE.
Siena enters a crowded market, where competitors like Gorgias, Intercom’s Fin, and Sierra all offer AI agents for customer service, and investors have also supported companies that assess the quality of support work.
Siena doesn’t charge on a per-user-seat basis; rather, brands are charged based on the results they achieve and the data tools they use. The company has now started hiring.