Munich Startup: You have E-Bot7 Founded in the summer of 2016. What have been the most important milestones since then?
Fabian Beringer: In 2019, we completed our Series A round, receiving €5.5 million from renowned investors to expand into additional countries. We have raised a total of €8.1 million through previous financing rounds.
One of our milestones in 2019 and 2020 was our expansion into the UK and France. In December 2020, we entered the BeNeLux market with the opening of our office in Amsterdam, as well as our entry into the Nordic markets.
At our last interview our number of employees was around 30. Now our team consists of more than 100 international employees in currently nine different time zones. A lot has also happened with our customers: These include the largest European companies such as Siemens, Audi, Telefónica, ADAC, Miele, Otis, and Hansgrohe. And in the product area, the development of additional languages as part of our internationalization is one of our most important developments. For example, we were recently able to expand our 'Conversational AI' platform to over 70 languages using neural machine translation. Of course, we are also constantly working on and releasing improvements to our product, various integration options, and language components.
How did E-Bot7 achieve its prediction?
Munich Startup: Our last interview was in 2017. Your market forecasts were very optimistic. How is business going in general?
Fabian Beringer: We are pleased that we were able to achieve all of the goals we set in the past. The COVID-19 pandemic initially caused a delay in investments in new software solutions, i.e., within the first three months. At the same time, however, the pandemic also led to a tremendous boost in digitalization, which is why we can look back on an overall extremely successful 2020. We were also recently delighted to receive multiple awards from G2 for Winter 2021: "Leader," "Best Relationship," "Easiest Setup," "Easiest Admin," and "Users Love Us." Since our customers are our focus, we were delighted to win these awards based on the reviews.
Our growth will continue in 2021 and we will continue to work hard to provide our customers with the best product and service.
The success of the company is paramount
Munich Startup: How has your corporate culture changed due to your rapid growth? Do you have any tips for other founders on how they should adapt their corporate organization as a scaling startup?
Fabian Beringer: At E-Bot7, we continue to use a flat hierarchical model. We've been delighted to have attracted many talented colleagues – especially at the management level – to our company in recent months. We're constantly strengthening our team and encouraging creative solutions and the exchange of ideas. To maintain the corporate culture of a startup, we pay particular attention to finding motivated team members who fit our culture, especially during the recruitment process. This is the only way we can achieve our goal of growing from scaleup to unicorn in the shortest possible time.
Munich Startup: You three founders have been involved from the beginning. Where do you sometimes clash? And what makes a good co-founder, in your opinion?
Fabian Beringer: We've all known each other for a very long time and are all from Bavaria. Naturally, each of us has strong expertise in our own field, but we all greatly appreciate each other. We don't really clash because we cultivate a "no-ego" culture. Everyone contributes their own ideas, and then they are discussed and implemented. The company's success is our top priority, and that's important. As a team, we need to work together and be able to rely on each other implicitly. If you also have the right drive and the right mindset and are steering in the same direction, things work very well.
Home office as a challenge
Munich Startup: What is the most challenging topic for you right now?
Fabian Beringer: Of course, COVID-19 has been a challenging topic for us as well. We had to master some adjustments, especially in the first few months. Nevertheless, we are happy that by adapting to the current situation, we were able to further maximize our profits, advance our company, and expand our team and product.
Working from home for several months has been one of the biggest challenges within the company. It was extremely important to us to act proactively and protect all employees as best as possible. Therefore, we decided to close the office again as a precautionary measure back in October. Through virtual events and team events, we are trying to optimally promote social contact at E-Bot7, ensuring that every one of our employees receives support. Nevertheless, we hope that the situation will improve soon and that we can work from our office again with targeted safety measures.
“Munich is competing with Silicon Valley”
Munich Startup: How do you currently perceive the entrepreneurial mood in Germany and Munich?
Fabian Beringer: We see enormous potential in German startups! Munich startups, along with many other German and European scaleups, form a European tech hub that rivals and can even surpass Silicon Valley. There are a growing number of positive initiatives promoting entrepreneurship, but there's still a lot of catching up to do in many areas, especially compared to other countries.
Munich Startup: You have offices in New York, London, Paris, and Amsterdam, and grew from Munich. What do you personally find special about the Munich startup scene?
Fabian Beringer: Our headquarters have been in Munich since our founding. At the same time, it's also our personal home. We therefore greatly value being connected to many other interesting founders and entrepreneurs and being in constant exchange. We're also featured on the roadmap for "It takes a City to raise a Startup."
E-Bot7: Aims to become world market leader for artificial intelligence in customer service
Munich Startup: Where do you see yourself in five years? Where in ten?
Fabian Beringer: One of our goals is to become the global market leader in artificial intelligence for customer service. Of course, by then we also want to have completed our expansion into all other European countries and other potential target markets, such as Asia Pacific.
On our path to becoming a unicorn, we will of course continue to grow our team organically. While this goal may sound ambitious, we definitely see it as realistic. Anyone who maintains a laser-like focus on customer value and does everything they can to offer them the best product and the best experience can achieve anything. Of course, working with the most talented people and partners in the market is a prerequisite for this.
Munich Startup: What is currently at the top of your list on your desk?
Fabian Beringer: Some exciting topics that I don't want to reveal too much about at the moment. But as soon as they're finalized, we'll let you know!
