Big Sur AI – an AI-driven platform for e-commerce – announced it raised a $6.9 million seed funding round. This funding round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and included participation from Capital F and several angel investors.
This funding round was announced in conjunction with the launch of the company’s flagship product, an AI Sales Agent. It offers enhanced product discovery and assisted shopping experience to online shoppers at merchant websites.
AI Sales Agent is tailored for each merchant and it is aimed at boosting merchants’ sales by driving higher conversion rates and larger order sizes, while also enabling shoppers to make better-informed purchase decisions effortlessly. The early deployments with a range of retailers show that shoppers interacting with the AI Sales Agent convert at a substantially higher rate (over 4x) than average. The AI Sales Agent is now available to all merchants via the Shopify platform.
Merchants spend a lot on marketing to bring traffic to their websites but the conversion rates are low – averaging only 2.5%. This is due to shoppers often being left to discover products and navigate the site without any immediate assistance. AI can fix these experiences by being more assistive and helpful, similar to interacting with a knowledgeable in-store sales associate.
Big Sur AI was launched last year by Vinod Ramachandran and Arnaud Weber. The pair are former Google executives who together helped build some of the most successful consumer and ad products across Chrome, Android, Ads and Google Shopping. They also saw firsthand the enormous opportunity to redefine the merchant and shopper experience for the AI era and launched Big Sur AI to ensure that these advancements benefit all merchants.
KEY QUOTES:
“Big Sur AI’s dedication to helping merchants cut through the noise and build lasting relationships with their customers aligns perfectly with our vision at Lightspeed. We believe retailers will need a personalized approach to customer engagement that persists outside of the retail store. Big Sur AI is making that kind of customer relationship automatic.”
- Sydney Sykes, Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners
“Our experience with Big Sur AI has been great. We are impressed with the pilot results showing significant lift in sales. For our customers, purchasing an electric bike is a major decision. We have various models with different features and the real-time assistance facilitated by Big Sur AI’s solution has been instrumental in converting browsers into buyers. Another important distinction with Big Sur AI is their level of customer service. It has been amazing. Their focus on innovation and customer service mirrors our own values.”
- Stephanie Roberts, CFO of Rad Power Bikes
“Over the last few months, Big Sur AI has been an incredible partner driving real business impact for us. Their product was simple to integrate and their team is highly responsive to our inputs as a design partner. While there is a lot of buzz around AI in retail, their product stands out against other AI products we have been testing. We’ve seen a tangible lift in site conversion and customer experience since we started our partnership.”
- Dave Crosby, Co-Founder and CMO of Wyze
“Our goal is to cut through the complexity of AI, creating an intuitive product that delivers real impact for merchants today. In an environment where retailers and brands are prioritizing profitability, we’re committed to being their trusted technology partner bringing advanced AI to grow sales and reduce costs. Lightspeed is the perfect partner for us in this journey and thanks to them we have assembled an exceptional team, including former senior Google and Meta employees, to help achieve our mission.”
- Big Sur AI’s co-founder and CEO Vinod Ramachandran
