Artificial intelligence (AI) startup Botworx.ai closed a $3 million investment to build out its conversational commerce platform, which enables brands to acquire, engage, and transact with consumers via messaging apps like Facebook Messenger and WeChat.

Botworx.ai was founded in 2016 by the co-founders of AdMarvel, which evolved into Opera Mediaworks, “the third largest mobile advertising company in the world,” the firm said.

The team is focused on building a bot creation and management platform with full lifecycle management and analytics, an AI-powered natural language engine as well as commerce, trust and security features.

“Chatbot technology is a leapfrog opportunity for brands to elevate ephemeral digital marketing campaigns into engaging and long-lived conversations with consumers,” said Mahi de Silva, CEO.

“Despite all of the technological innovation, marketing is still done one campaign at a time, where brands have very limited access to audience profile and engagement data. We’re building Botworx.ai to upend that paradigm gives brands greater power to acquire customers, engage them with content and monetise the engagement,” he explained.

The round was led by Costanoa Ventures with support from SV Angel.