Startup Israel: eSelf Raises $4.5M Seed

eSelf, based in Tel Aviv, is a platform for businesses to create face-to-face conversational AI agents. The company announced today the official launch of their solution alongside $4.5 million in Seed funding.

The round was led by Explorer Investments, with participation from Ridge Ventures and strategic angel investors, including Eyal Manor, former VP of Engineering at YouTube and Chief Product & Engineering Officer at Twilio.

eSelf has already powered millions of real-time conversations, with notable clients including Christie’s, and Brazil’s AGI Bank. The platform enables businesses to deploy highly customizable, human-like AI agents that interact seamlessly with customers through real-time video chats.

eSelf was founded by CEO Dr. Alan Bekker, a pioneer in deep learning in Israel and former Head of Conversational AI at Snap, and CTO Eylon Shoshan, an alumnus of the 8200 intelligence unit with a master’s in natural language processing from Technion.

The Challenge

Dr. Bekker’s previous venture Voca, which created human-like voice bots for call centers, was acquired by Snap for $100M. During his tenure at Snap, where he worked with its 400M+ daily active users and served as one of OpenAI’s earliest design partners, Bekker recognized that businesses were seeking more immersive and natural ways to engage with customers at scale.

The Solution

The co-founders developed eSelf’s platform to enable businesses to create and deploy customized AI agents that can engage in face-to-face video conversations with customers, while seamlessly integrating with existing business systems and processes.

Through the company’s self-service studio, businesses can configure their agents’ personalities, knowledge base, and capabilities without requiring technical expertise.

The platform integrates directly with business tools like Salesforce and Calendly, allowing agents to access real-time information about products and services, and perform actions such as scheduling appointments.

The Success

Christie’s is using eSelf’s AI agent for its Portugal real estate brokerage firm as a first point of contact for potential buyers. The AI real estate agent qualifies leads by inquiring about buyers’ requirements and budgets, then draws from Christie’s property database in real-time to showcase relevant listings, complete with images and property details.

At AGI Bank, one of Brazil’s largest digital banks with over 10 million customers, virtual support agents help users navigate digital banking services, while DL Holdings, a Hong Kong financial services firm, employs multilingual eSelf agents to provide financial advisory services in both English and Mandarin.

based on the press release of the company. Selected as relevant/lectured/shortened by VonNaftali