London-based Merx secures €1.1M for its AI-powered conversational commerce platform

London-based Merx, an AI-powered conversational commerce platform, announced that it has secured £1M (approximately €1.1M) in a pre-seed funding round. 

The round was led by VentureFriends, the European early-stage VC firm, with participation from Ascension, the London-based early-stage VC firm.

VentureFriends is a pan-European Pre-Seed and Seed VC fund. Currently investing from their 3rd fund (€100M), they are looking for exceptional founders building in FinTech, B2B as well as B2C software.

Apostolos Apostolakis, Venturefriends founding partner, comments, “Over the years we have seen an increased difficulty for consumer-facing companies to effectively engage with their audience and better serve their needs. WhatsApp can offer a very effective way to drive engagement as well as sales. We are excited to partner and support Pietro and Mohamed who have a deep understanding of the space and with Merx can help companies harness the WhatsApp channel.” 

The UK company will use the funds to hire top-tier software engineering talent, accelerate product innovation, refine AI models to enhance personalisation, and support enterprise platform integration. 

Merx: Belps brands sell

Merx was founded by an Italian and Egyptian founder —  Pietro Cammerini and Mohamed ElShaer. The duo met during a founder residency in London run by Antler.

The UK company has built a conversation commerce platform that helps brands engage, convert, and retain customers through personalised shopping experiences on conversational channels like WhatsApp.

Merx uses AI technology to help businesses create smooth, personalized interactions that increase sales, improve customer satisfaction, and gather useful insights— all through messaging apps.

The UK company targets the enterprise consumer goods and retail market and is already operating at significant scales handling high volumes of interactions, enabling thousands of purchases for customers.

Pietro Cammerini, co-founder of Merx, comments, “We believe the days of email marketing and website-centric digital commerce are over. In an AI-first world, brands will need to engage customers more directly and provide hyper-personalised experiences wherever customers already are. This funding marks a pivotal moment for Merx as we continue our mission to revolutionise conversation commerce through AI and empower brands to engage with their customers in more meaningful ways.”