Shopping and travel bot startup Mezi chats its way to $9 million

Mezi, the startup behind a human-assisted shopping and travel-focused chatbot, announced today that it has raised $9 million in a round led by Nexus Venture Partners.

Mezi says its chatbot acts as a personal assistant by mixing “artificial intelligence and human expertise” to send personalized, “humanistic” texts to users, with close to half of all users coming back to the app for travel bookings, fashion, and gifts.

“Mezi elevates A.I. to the next level by uniting human intelligence with machine intelligence that shatters today’s current standard,” said Nexus’ managing director, Jishnu Bhattacharjee.” “We look forward to our partnership with Mezi, to further the landscape of A.I.-human interaction and change everyday life for the better.”

Saama Capital, American Express Ventures, and two angel investors — former Google Search head Amit Singhal and Square product engineering lead Gokul Rajaram — also joined the series A round for Mezi.

The startup has raised at least $11.8 million to date, including a seed round in December.