Luzia secures $10M to scale WhatsApp chatbot

Large Language Models (LLMs) such as OpenAI's ChatGPT, Google's Bard, and Microsoft's Bing Chat are making strides in the development of chatbots. But many aren't aware of these advancements, especially non-tech savvy audiences.

This gap is what Luzia, a Spain-based startup founded by Álvaro Martínez Higes, Javier Andrés, and Carlos Pérez in 2023, aims to fill.

• What Do They Do: They are introducing AI chatbot technology to users via a WhatsApp-based bot, addressing the Spanish and Portuguese-speaking market. Users can interact with Luzia easily - simply save the bot as a contact and start chatting on WhatsApp or Telegram.

• Funding: Luzia recently raised $10M in Series A funding from firms including Khosla Ventures, A* Capital, Abstract Ventures, FJ Labs, Globo Venture, Mike Santos of Technisys, Sean Ryan of Sean Investments LTD, and Grupo Product.

• It's All About Numbers: Luzia boasts impressive usage stats with more than 17 million total users and 8 million monthly active users.

• Native Language: The bot's language defaults to Spanish or Portuguese based on your location but can converse in other languages thanks to its GPT tech foundation. While primarily serving Latin American countries and Spain, Luzia is expanding in the U.S. The bot is primarily compared to voice assistants like Siri or Alexa by first-time users.

Luzia uses a combination of models such as GPT 3.5/4, Llama, and Kandinsky for interactions.

Alongside text generation and question answering, Luzia can also transcribe voice notes and generate images based on given prompts.