Roma AI, a Uruguayan-Chilean startup founded by Richard Barbera, Javier Hernández, and Benjamín De Oto, has closed a US$1.2 million seed round led by Invexor Venture Partners. The company provides a platform that lets businesses create, operate, and govern artificial intelligence agents connected directly to their internal systems. The new capital will support product development, hiring, and regional expansion across Latin America.
A Governance-First Platform for Enterprise AI
Roma AI focuses on more than conversational automation by adding governance, traceability, business rules, audit trails, and continuous monitoring to every agent action. Its platform integrates with tools such as calendars, payment platforms, catalogs, CRM systems, and custom software through APIs. Sensitive corporate data remains within the client's own infrastructure rather than being exposed to external AI providers.
Origins and Early Traction
Richard Barbera conceived Roma AI in February 2025 after years leading conversational assistant development for major retailers including Cencosud. He validated a prototype with companies willing to pay from the start, incubated the project at Ingenio, and brought in angel investor Ramón Heredia before formally incorporating the company in Chile in May 2025. Roma AI now processes more than 500,000 messages per month for over 50 organizations across Latin America.
Commercial Model and Early Customers
The startup charges by conversation volume rather than by project, with small business plans starting at US$99 per month for 500 conversations and corporate accounts covering up to 10,000 conversations with dedicated support. Clients include Caja Los Andes, BK Servicios Financieros, Crediautos, Banco Tanner, BICE Vida, Consorcio, and Falabella. The platform is already used for tasks such as processing an automotive loan end to end and coordinating dental clinic appointments without human intervention.
Funding Allocation and Team Growth
Roma AI will allocate 55 percent of the new resources to hiring, aiming to grow from 9 to 30 employees within six months, with several roles based in Uruguay. Another 33 percent will go to marketing and events, while the remainder will support technology and infrastructure. The growth strategy combines new customer acquisition with selling additional services inside active accounts, and the company reports that no corporate client has canceled the service so far.
Investor Perspective
Invexor Venture Partners led the round with the goal of accelerating a platform built for complex enterprise processes. Jorge Rodríguez, CEO of Invexor Venture Partners, said artificial intelligence appears easy to acquire but presents major challenges for effective application in companies with multiple actors and complex processes. He added that Roma AI makes it possible to build powerful solutions with high security, traceability, and scalability.
Future Roadmap
The company will use the funding to strengthen its engineering team, develop new governance and security capabilities for AI agents, and expand its commercial presence in Latin America. Richard Barbera, CEO and founder, said that within a few years enterprises will manage complete teams of AI agents in the same way they manage users, applications, or business processes today. Roma AI aims to provide the platform that enables that operation in a secure, transparent, and scalable way.
Roma AI's seed round signals growing investor confidence in enterprise AI infrastructure that prioritizes security and governance. With more than 50 active organizations, strong retention, and a usage-based business model, the startup has demonstrated early market traction in regulated sectors. The fresh capital positions the company to expand its team and product capabilities while helping more Latin American businesses automate critical processes without losing control of their data.