This two-year-old startup is leveraging AI to help discover and build professional connections

The modern professional landscape is increasingly reliant on effective networking, yet traditional methods are often inadequate for fostering meaningful business connections. 

The challenge is particularly pronounced in the context of events and business communities, where decision-makers and entrepreneurs frequently seek to establish impactful relationships. 

Traditional networking avenues, such as email and LinkedIn, are hampered by low engagement rates and a high incidence of spam, making it difficult for professionals to connect with relevant peers. 

This inefficiency in networking leads to missed opportunities, as potential collaborations, partnerships, and business ventures remain unexplored due to the inability to connect with the right individuals. 

Furthermore, the existing networking platforms and methods fail to provide a direct and reliable way for professionals to engage with each other. The process of discovering and connecting with like-minded individuals at events or within business communities is often cumbersome and time-consuming. 

Professionals frequently find themselves navigating through a sea of irrelevant contacts, leading to frustration and a significant waste of time and resources. 

This gap in the networking process hinders the formation of crucial business relationships, such as those with potential vendors, investors, distributors, and clients. 

The need for a more streamlined, efficient, and targeted approach to professional networking is evident, as the current methods do not adequately support the dynamic and fast-paced nature of modern business interactions.

Utkarsh Roy, who was building a community of over 4,000 entrepreneurs in 2019 through Founders Circle, realised the problem and the need for an effective way for professionals in the country to connect with each other. 

Who is Utkarsh Roy? 

Utkarsh Roy studied at Stanford Unversity Graduate School of Business and completed his MSc in Computer Science from the University of Torronto. While doing MSc, He was also a board member of the board of the governing council. 

There, he was part of the four-alumni team, which represented the worldwide University of Toronto alumni community (of 500,000) at the Governing Council of the University of Toronto.

Utkarsh isn’t the first-time founder. His previous venture was Ohwow!, a Mobile-first file sharing for the media-savvy creator economy & Gen-Zs.

How did it start?

Utkarsh Roy, during his time organising events with Founders Circle in India and the United States, observed a common challenge faced by decision-makers and business owners. They were actively seeking more effective ways to identify and connect with individuals who shared similar professional interests and goals. 

However, the process of making these connections was not straightforward. Attendees frequently approached Roy, asking if he could facilitate introductions to specific individuals at various companies. Unfortunately, due to the limitations of traditional networking methods, these potential connections often went unrealised.

This resulted in missed opportunities for forming important business relationships with potential vendors, investors, distributors, and clients – relationships that could significantly enhance one's business prospects. 

Recognising this gap in the networking process, Roy was inspired to develop a more efficient solution for fostering meaningful professional interactions. 

What does Introbot do?

In 2021, Roy founded Introbot, an innovative platform that leverages AI technology and operates through WhatsApp. The startup assists attendees at events and members of business communities in effortlessly accessing, engaging with, and building relationships with key decision-makers. 

The platform's AI-driven approach simplifies the process of finding and connecting with relevant professionals, thereby addressing the challenge of initiating and sustaining valuable business conversations. 

With Introbot, users can easily identify and reach out to individuals who align with their professional interests and objectives, making the most of networking opportunities at events and within business communities.

How does it work?

Introbot is an exclusive platform designed to enhance networking opportunities, particularly at events and within private communities. It serves as a specialized tool for connecting founders, professionals, and investors in a more streamlined and effective manner.

The platform operates through an AI-powered chatbot on WhatsApp, which attendees can use to find and connect with specific individuals. Users simply input their networking preferences into the chatbot, and it generates tailored recommendations, facilitating direct connections right within WhatsApp. 

The feature is particularly useful for event attendees, sponsors, speakers, organizers, and community administrators who are looking to build meaningful professional relationships.

Utkarsh Roy, the founder of Introbot, identified the limitations of traditional networking methods like email and LinkedIn, which often suffer from low engagement rates and a high volume of irrelevant content.

He realized that these platforms were not the most efficient for business owners and founders who are looking to connect with like-minded professionals and decision-makers.

Introbot addresses this gap by prioritizing direct and meaningful interactions, cutting through the clutter of emails and the general nature of other social platforms. 

Roy also recognized that decision-makers often prefer to network in person at events or through online communities such as alumni groups, venture capital portfolio groups, and startup groups. Introbot caters to this preference by enabling users to easily find and connect with relevant individuals in these settings. 

Additionally, the app enhances communication by delivering important event updates and details directly to users via WhatsApp, ensuring they stay informed and connected throughout the event. 

This approach streamlines the networking process, making it more efficient and effective for building valuable professional relationships.

Addressing key challenges

Introbot addresses several key challenges commonly faced in mid-to-large scale B2B events and communities, particularly in the realm of networking and engagement. One of the primary issues in such events is the difficulty of identifying and connecting with the right individuals who match specific business needs and interests. 

For example, if someone runs a digital marketing firm and attends an event, their main goal might be to find potential leads or connect with specific brands and startups that align with their business objectives. 

Traditional networking methods at these events often lack precision and efficiency in making these targeted connections. 

To solve this, Introbot employs a sophisticated matchmaking system that leverages data to facilitate precise connections. 

The platform collects and analyzes various types of data that are beneficial for both event organizers and attendees. This includes tracking the most active members in the network, understanding the interests of the majority, gauging the overall engagement level within the community, and determining optimal times for launching marketing initiatives. 

This data-driven approach enables Introbot to provide tailored recommendations for users based on their specific networking goals.

For instance, if a startup founder is looking to meet potential investors at an event, Introbot’s AI-powered chatbot on WhatsApp can suggest a list of relevant investors attending the same event. 

The founder can then easily reach out to these potential investors directly through WhatsApp or connect with them on LinkedIn. This streamlined process significantly enhances the efficiency of networking at events. 

The startup also aims to provide valuable insights and analytics to event organizers, something that is often missing in traditional event management. 

By capturing detailed data on attendee behaviour, interests, and engagement, Introbot helps organizers understand the dynamics of their event more deeply. This includes insights into attendee intentions, purposes for attending, and interaction patterns. 

Such analytics are crucial for organizers to tailor their events more effectively, ensuring that they facilitate meaningful and productive engagement among attendees

How does it leverage AI?

Introbot's development and functionality are deeply rooted in advanced artificial intelligence (AI), a field in which its founder, Utkarsh Roy, has significant expertise and experience. 

Roy's journey in AI was influenced by his time at the University of Toronto, where he studied computer science and had the opportunity to interact with prominent figures in the AI world. 

He met Ilya Sutskever, co-founder and chief scientist at OpenAI, and learned from Geoffrey Hinton, a renowned AI expert often referred to as the 'Godfather of AI'. The learning and experiences provided Roy with a profound understanding of AI technologies and their potential applications. 

The platform uses an AI engine to analyze a user's profile information and understand their networking needs. It can process and interpret over 10,000 keywords, allowing it to recommend the most relevant professional connections and content. 

Essentially, It creates a network graph that maps out the people and information relevant to a user, thus facilitating efficient and targeted networking. 

This capability saves users time and effort, as it eliminates the need to manually search for and identify potential connections. In addition to its AI capabilities, Introbot uses a WhatsApp chatbot as its primary communication interface. 

The chatbot allows users to interact directly and establish connections within the platform. Privacy is a key concern for Introbot, and the platform ensures that connections between members are made only with mutual consent. 

Despite the innovative technology and customer demand, The startup faces operational challenges due to its small team size. This limitation makes it difficult for the startup to onboard new clients and partners efficiently and deliver services at scale. 

According to Roy, the startup is planning to raise capital from external investors and focus on rapid hiring to expand the team and improve the startup's operational capacity. 

International presence

Introbot, which was initially focused on the Indian market, is now expanding its reach internationally, particularly in the United States and Europe.

The startup is preparing for a significant expansion into the US market. It claims to have established collaborations with several notable organizations and platforms, including YourStory, NRAI, Simpl, Inc42, Unicommerce, D2C Insider, and Antler.

It has connected with over 300 B2B communities and 30,000 decision-makers, demonstrating its growing influence in the professional networking space.

What are the future plans?

The startup plans to concentrate on B2B events both in India and internationally. The team also aims to engage diverse business communities, ranging from founder groups to various Slack channels.

However, as the platform grows, It faces technological challenges, including efficiently scaling with the increasing number of users and events, leading to slower response times. 

To address this, the team is working on enhancing the AI engine, particularly with the integration of Generative AI and improved natural language processing (NLP) capabilities. 

Funding and investors

So far, Introbot has raised about half a million in funding from notable investors, including 021 Capital, Schmidt Futures, Antler India, and individual investors like Chaitanya Ramalingegowda and Ritesh Malik. 

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