AI is altering how we store on-line, making our experiences extra customized. Sensible assistants advocate merchandise, negotiate offers, and even deal with customer support. Huge retailers and smaller companies are utilizing AI to enhance search, provide chains, and checkout.
If AI firms (and their buyers) have their manner, procuring will quickly be centered on chatting with an assistant, with companies automating every thing behind the scenes.
Dubai-based Qeen.ai (stylized as qeen.ai) is working to make this a actuality within the Center East and past. The startup has raised $10 million to scale its platform, which offers autonomous AI brokers for e-commerce companies.
Prosus Ventures, a significant e-commerce investor, led the seed spherical, which isn’t solely one of many largest within the Center East’s AI business however in MENA total. The VC believes Qeen.ai is well-positioned to carry AI-driven automation to retailers as AI brokers reshape on-line marketplaces.
Founders Morteza Ibrahimi (CEO), Ahmad Khwlieh (CTO), and Dina Alsamhan (CBO) began Qeen after years of engaged on AI at Google and DeepMind.
Ibrahimi, in an interview with TechCrunch, mentioned that they honed in on e-commerce partially opportunistically: all three had labored at Google Advertisements in numerous roles throughout their time with the search big, they usually and noticed first-hand how different alums constructed extremely profitable e-commerce companies. On prime of their AI experience, the trio knew how one can run advertisements and optimize search engine optimization exceptionally properly and thought it may very well be a powerful mixture.
Google and DeepMind background
E-commerce has been steadily rising for years, however other than sure spikes (significantly throughout vacation durations) it nonetheless accounts for between 15% and 20% of retail gross sales (even in a mature market just like the U.S. it was solely simply over 16% at of the final quarter, per the U.S. Census Bureau).
Qeen’s thesis is that this might develop if the e-commerce processes had been run higher. Success in e-commerce, they believed, ought to be about nice merchandise and operational effectivity — not simply who can sport the advert system greatest. That perception led them to construct a platform that helps e-commerce sellers develop with out counting on advertisements as their main driver.
The worldwide e-commerce market is increasing quick, pushed by altering client conduct, digital funds, and higher logistics. In MENA, the market is predicted to hit $50 billion by 2025, with Saudi Arabia and the UAE main the expansion.
Qeen.ai is tapping into this increase by creating AI-powered advertising and marketing brokers designed for e-commerce companies throughout MENA. These totally automated brokers deal with content material creation, advertising and marketing, and conversational gross sales, permitting small and mid-sized retailers to compete with out counting on costly businesses or deep advert experience.
In contrast to conventional options, Qeen’s AI repeatedly learns from client interactions utilizing its proprietary RL-UI know-how, refining advertising and marketing methods in real-time for higher outcomes.
From Google advertisements to AI-driven e-commerce
Whereas AI-powered gross sales and customer support instruments typically battle with excessive churn charges, as companies ceaselessly swap platforms, Qeen.ai claims to see stronger retention in e-commerce and advertising and marketing. Ibrahimi attributes this to how deeply Qeen’s AI brokers combine into retailers’ workflows, making them a core a part of each day operations quite than a replaceable software.
A key function driving engagement is dynamic textual content personalization, which adjusts content material based mostly on person conduct and machine sort. For instance, an iPhone person would possibly see product particulars in bullet factors for fast studying, whereas a laptop computer person will get an in depth paragraph.
Since launching its Dynamic Content material agent in Q2 2024, Qeen.ai has served over 15 million customers, generated 1 million SKU descriptions, and helped retailers improve gross sales by 30%, in keeping with the corporate.
“We labored with a consumer to optimize their content material and search engine optimization. After utilizing our AI plugins, their search quantity elevated by 40%, and their Google rating improved from 22 to 18—all with zero guide effort. Your entire course of was totally autonomous,” mentioned Ibrahimi, giving one other occasion the place Qeen’s AI capabilities have shone.
Qeen employs a subscription-based pricing mannequin and incorporates value-based pricing, a rising pattern in AI companies. At present, qeen generates income by way of two subscription fashions: content material automation, the place companies pay per energetic SKU, usually $0.10 to $0.20 per SKU per thirty days. Then its AI advertising and marketing agent whose pricing relies on per-interaction quantity.
Ibrahimi declined to reveal the variety of companies utilizing qeen, in addition to income progress metrics. Notable purchasers embody Dubai Retailer, sixth Avenue, and Jumia.
Standing out… with expertise
Ibrahimi left DeepMind in early 2023 to co-found the startup. That very same 12 months, the corporate raised a $2 million pre-seed spherical earlier than launching its product in June 2024. With its current $10 million seed spherical, qeen has raised a complete of $12 million in below a 12 months.
Throughout this time, AI-powered advertising and marketing brokers have gained traction worldwide, with a number of startups, significantly within the U.S. and Europe, getting into the house. Opponents like YC-backed Uncommon and Rankai are tackling related challenges, so how does Qeen stand out?
Nicely, for one, most of those AI startups concentrate on developed markets, whereas Qeen as an alternative is prioritizing the Center East first—a area largely underserved by AI-driven advertising and marketing automation instruments. In accordance with Ibrahimi, Qeen will serve small companies throughout MENA, set up a powerful foothold, after which increase globally.
Deep tech experience and a powerful expertise pool give Qeen an edge over new entrants, the chief government added. Two of its co-founders earned PhDs in AI over a decade in the past, lengthy earlier than AI turned mainstream. Ibrahimi himself beforehand led a DeepMind analysis crew specializing in self-learning, goal-driven AI brokers—the identical know-how that now powers Qeen.
“Some of the thrilling issues we’ve seen is the standard of AI expertise right here,” Ibrahimi mentioned. “We’ve attracted nice expertise each regionally and internationally—folks have left the Bay Space, Europe, and the UK to come back right here and construct with us.”
Qeen.ai at present employs over 25 folks throughout the UAE and Jordan.
The seed funding will assist qeen’s progress technique by increasing its AI platform, scaling its crew, and attracting extra clients, it mentioned. Wamda Capital, 10X Founders Fund, and Dara Holdings are among the many different buyers on this spherical.
