Today, Big Sur AI, an AI platform for e-commerce, announced a $6.9M seed round to democratize and simplify access to AI for retailers and brands. The round, which was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and included participation from Capital F and several angel investors, comes as part of the launch of the company’s flagship product, an AI Sales Agent, which offers enhanced product discovery and assisted shopping experience to online shoppers at merchant websites. Retail will be one of the biggest beneficiaries of AI transformation1 and Big Sur AI is dedicated to ensuring every merchant can easily tap into these benefits.
“Big Sur AI’s dedication to helping merchants cut through the noise and build lasting relationships with their customers aligns perfectly with our vision at Lightspeed,” said Sydney Sykes, Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners, explaining the thesis behind the investment. “We believe retailers will need a personalized approach to customer engagement that persists outside of the retail store. Big Sur AI is making that kind of customer relationship automatic.”
The company’s AI Sales Agent, which is tailored for each merchant, is aimed at boosting merchants’ sales through higher conversion rates and larger order sizes, while enabling shoppers to make well-informed purchase decisions effortlessly. Early deployments with a range of retailers show that shoppers interacting with the AI Sales Agent convert at a substantially higher rate (4x and greater) than average. The AI Sales Agent is now available to all merchants on the Shopify platform.
Big Sur AI’s early adopters and design partners include notable brands across a range of verticals including Rad Power Bikes and Wyze.
Stephanie Roberts, CFO of Rad Power Bikes, shared the following: “Our experience with Big Sur AI has been great. We are impressed with the pilot results showing significant lift in sales. For our customers, purchasing an electric bike is a major decision. We have various models with different features and the real-time assistance facilitated by Big Sur AI’s solution has been instrumental in converting browsers into buyers. Another important distinction with Big Sur AI is their level of customer service. It has been amazing. Their focus on innovation and customer service mirrors our own values.”
Merchants spend significantly on marketing to bring traffic to their websites but the conversion rates are low, averaging only 2.5%. This stems from shoppers often left to discover products and navigate the site without any immediate assistance. AI can transform these experiences to be more assistive and helpful similar to interacting with a knowledgeable in-store sales associate.
According to Dave Crosby, Co-Founder and CMO of Wyze, “Over the last few months, Big Sur AI has been an incredible partner driving real business impact for us. Their product was simple to integrate and their team is highly responsive to our inputs as a design partner. While there is a lot of buzz around AI in retail, their product stands out against other AI products we have been testing. We’ve seen a tangible lift in site conversion and customer experience since we started our partnership.”
“Our goal is to cut through the complexity of AI, creating an intuitive product that delivers real impact for merchants today,” said Big Sur AI’s co-founder and CEO, Vinod Ramachandran. “In an environment where retailers and brands are prioritizing profitability, we’re committed to being their trusted technology partner bringing advanced AI to grow sales and reduce costs. Lightspeed is the perfect partner for us in this journey and thanks to them we have assembled an exceptional team, including former senior Google and Meta employees, to help achieve our mission.”
Big Sur AI was founded in 2023 by Vinod Ramachandran and Arnaud Weber, former Google executives who together helped build some of the most successful consumer and advertising products across Chrome, Android, Ads and Google Shopping. They saw firsthand the enormous opportunity to redefine the merchant and shopper experience for the AI era and started Big Sur AI to ensure that these advancements benefit all merchants.
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