India’s rapidly evolving artificial intelligence ecosystem has witnessed another early-stage funding boost as Cheerio AI, an AI-powered customer engagement platform, has secured ₹8 crore in a seed funding round led by Artha Venture Fund through its Artha Venture Fund II. The investment highlights growing investor interest in enterprise AI solutions that help businesses improve customer communication and marketing automation.
The funding round also saw participation from Hyderabad Angels, TiE Angels, LetsVenture, Invention Engine, and several individual angel investors. The fresh capital will help the startup strengthen its AI capabilities, expand product offerings, and accelerate its growth plans in both domestic and international markets.
Funding to Strengthen AI Capabilities and Automation
According to the company, the newly raised funds will primarily be used to enhance its multi-modal AI capabilities. One of the key focus areas will be building a proprietary small-model large language model (LLM) designed specifically for advertising and marketing content generation.
Cheerio AI also plans to expand its platform beyond messaging-based communication to include voice and video channels. This expansion will allow enterprises to engage with customers across a wider range of touchpoints while maintaining automated workflows powered by artificial intelligence.
In addition, the company aims to strengthen enterprise-grade infrastructure and automation features that help organisations manage customer interactions more efficiently. These improvements are expected to make the platform more robust for large-scale enterprise clients that rely on integrated communication tools for marketing, sales, and customer support.
Hiring Plans and Global Expansion
As part of its next growth phase, Cheerio AI is planning to significantly expand its team. Over the next six months, the startup intends to hire talent across engineering, artificial intelligence, enterprise sales, and customer success roles.
These hires will support the development of new product features while also helping the company scale operations and expand globally. The company is preparing to enter new markets and strengthen its presence among international enterprise clients, reflecting its ambition to become a global AI-driven engagement platform.
Building a Unified Customer Engagement Platform
Founded by Nishant Das along with Avinash and Priam, Cheerio AI focuses on helping businesses improve the relationship between customer acquisition cost (CAC) and lifetime value (LTV). Its AI-powered platform integrates marketing, support, and sales workflows into a unified system designed to optimise customer engagement and retention.
The platform allows enterprises to communicate with customers through multiple channels including WhatsApp, email, SMS, social messaging, and in-app communication. By bringing these interactions together into a single platform, companies can automate communication flows, personalise marketing campaigns, and streamline support processes.
Cheerio AI claims that its solutions have already been adopted by more than 150 enterprise customers across six different industries. Through its retention automation capabilities, the startup says it has helped its clients generate over ₹500 crore in additional revenue. The company has also reported strong growth, registering around 450% year-on-year revenue growth over the last two years.
Rising Demand for AI-Powered Enterprise Tools
The funding comes at a time when businesses across industries are increasingly adopting AI-powered platforms to improve customer engagement, marketing efficiency, and operational automation. Startups building specialised AI tools for enterprise use cases have been attracting growing attention from investors.
Cheerio AI’s latest funding round reflects this broader trend, where venture capital firms are actively backing startups developing practical AI solutions that deliver measurable business outcomes.
With fresh capital, a growing enterprise customer base, and expanding AI capabilities, Cheerio AI aims to strengthen its position in the competitive customer engagement technology space while preparing for the next stage of global growth.