Kasisto raises $9.2 million to go beyond personal finance bots

Bots and artificial intelligence company Kasisto today announced that it has raised $9.2 million. The money will be used to bolster the company’s personal finance bot KAI and expand its AI virtual assistant offerings to markets beyond finance.

When asked by VentureBeat, the company declined to state which industries it plans to enter but said that specifics would be shared at a later date.

Kasisto is a spinoff of SRI International, creator of Apple virtual assistant Siri.

Kasisto launched AI-powered KAI for personal finance and banking last June. The bot answers questions about a user’s personal finances and more than 1,000 other questions, like “What is stock?” and “What is the meaning of life?”

Royal Bank of Canada, Development Bank of Singapore, and mobile-only bank Digibank in India brought KAI to their customers last year.

Variations of KAI have also been used to create Val, an intelligent assistant for fintech startup Varo Money, and MasterCard KAI. Both virtual assistants are due out later this year.

The funding round was led by Propel Venture Partners, with participation from MasterCard, DBS Bank, and Harvard Business School alumnus Angels of New York, among others. To date, Kasisto has raised $11.4 million.

Kasisto was founded in 2013, has 30 employees, and has offices in Menlo Park, Calif. and New York.