Jelou, a company transforming conversational channels into transactional hubs, has successfully closed a $10 million Series A funding round. Led by Wellington Access Ventures, the investment will accelerate the expansion of its AI platform, Brain, across the Americas. The platform enables businesses to execute secure financial and operational tasks directly within messaging apps like WhatsApp, closing the gap between customer communication and action.
Addressing Conversational Commerce Fragmentation
Across the Americas, businesses increasingly rely on WhatsApp for customer engagement, yet a critical disconnect persists when transactions are required. Customers are often redirected to external apps, portals, or call centers for payments, identity verification, or applications. This fragmented journey creates friction, leading to high customer drop-off rates and increased operational costs for companies managing disparate systems.
Founded in Ecuador in 2017 by Luis Loaiza and Alberto Vera, Jelou was created to solve this exact problem. The founders leveraged their experience in encrypted communication systems to build a platform that makes transactional chat both reliable and compliant. Their goal was to eliminate the inefficiencies that arise when conversations start in one place and business gets done somewhere else.
A Platform Built for Execution
At the heart of Jelou's solution is Brain, a platform designed for building operational AI agents that perform real tasks rather than just providing scripted answers. These agents can verify identity, trigger payments, open accounts, and advance complex credit workflows securely inside a chat conversation. This approach moves artificial intelligence beyond simple talk and into tangible, secure execution of business-critical operations.
The Brain platform includes a development studio with over 3,000 integrations, allowing agents to connect seamlessly with existing banking cores, payment rails, and enterprise software. A sophisticated conversation management layer enables teams to supervise high-volume interactions and ensure sensitive workflows run securely and at scale. This empowers businesses to deploy powerful AI without needing to overhaul their current infrastructure.
Strategic Funding and Market Expansion
The new $10 million investment was led by Wellington Access Ventures, with participation from Krealo, Credicorp’s corporate venture arm, and Collide Capital. This round brings Jelou's total funding to $13 million, following a previous $3 million seed round. The capital injection marks a defining moment for the company as it prepares for a strategic entry into the U.S. market.
Jelou has already demonstrated significant traction across Latin America, where it serves over 500 business customers in more than 13 countries. Its agents have processed over $100 million in financial operations for clients ranging from banks and retailers to logistics companies. This proven success underscores the market demand for a solution that integrates conversational AI with secure, transactional capabilities.
Vision for the Future of Business Communication
Looking ahead, Jelou envisions Brain evolving into a complete operating system for conversational business. The company aims to enable developers to build and manage production-ready WhatsApp applications directly from a prompt, unifying workflows, payments, and identity checks. This positions WhatsApp to become the primary operating layer for businesses, powered by Jelou’s infrastructure.
Luis Loaiza, CEO of Jelou, stated, “We built Brain so businesses can meet customers where they already are and complete the entire operation securely inside chat.” Jackson Cummings of Wellington Access Ventures added that Jelou’s strategic approach “positions [it] as an early mover in bringing transactional AI to messaging in Latin America,” highlighting the platform's potential to redefine customer engagement.
With its latest funding, Jelou is strongly positioned to lead a new era in conversational commerce, where messaging apps become the central command center for business execution. By empowering companies to complete transactions within the flow of conversation, the platform addresses key business priorities like cost reduction and improved conversion. This strategic shift promises a more secure, efficient, and intuitive future for customer interactions across the globe.