Neople: “In the future, it will be normal to work with AI agents”
Our startup interviewer recently had the pleasure of conducting a very special interview. Neople was the first startup from the Netherlands to make itself available to our chatbot. Neople is active in the field of automation through AI. The young company supports companies’ customer service systems with digital workers. Milan Meurs, Head of Growth Marketing at Neople, talks about the startup.
Can you introduce us to your startup? What exactly do you do?
Milan Neurs: Neople is an AI-startup from the Netherlands that was founded in January 2023. We develop AI employees for customer service in the e-commerce, retail and hospitality sector. Our digital assistants, called the Neople, help to relieve customer support teams.
Who’s in the founding team?
There are four founders, Hans de Penning, Job Nijenhuis, Menno Zevenbergen and Bas Ploeg. All seasoned entrepreneurs that have a background in (conversational) AI.
Now, can you share the story behind Neople? How and why did you start it?
In early 2022, Bas and Menno met the other two (Job and Hans) and quickly found each other in our ideas and vision. After various conversations and sharing ideas, they decided to take the leap. They wanted to make the technology accessible to everyone, but not in the form of a service. The idea of “hiring AI into your organisation” was something they were all very excited about. That’s how they started with the idea of hiring a digital employee, and the Neople were born.
Could you tell me what differentiates Neople from your competition?
We are not building a new tool or platform that people need to get used to. We are building a digital colleague that everyone can work with from day one. We train the Neople to use your systems, to talk in your tone of voice, and to handle incoming questions from clients in the way like your best customer support agent. It’s a different way of building technology, that really helps with the adoption of AI in your organization. Every Neople is unique, and together we really train it to be the perfect colleague. We also have a customer success team (called the Neople career coaches) that guide our clients in this AI journey.
Regarding technologies, which ones do you implement, or have you developed any proprietary technology?
All the Neople are unique, uniquely trained on the information, data, workflows of each specific company. They are also designed to communicate in a friendly collegial way, something we call collegial AI.
Who are your target customers and how do you reach them?
Our target group are those companies that have high volume of interaction with their end users and value customer experience. These are mostly companies that are active in e-commerce, retail or hospitality. We understand the commonalities in this target group, as are Neople are handling millions of tickets per year. By receiving a lot of feedback (either through training the Neople directly or in the conversations with our Customer Success team) we make sure that the product is constantly evolving to what is needed by them.
Can you tell us about your funding? Are there any investors involved?
We received an investment of 6 million euros last month led by Newion, Peak, and Simon Capital.
Could you explain your business model to us?
We don’t have a SaaS product with a monthly subscription fee, we employ Neople, and they get a salary.
Could you tell us about the next steps for your startup?
The long-term business goal is to make impact in customer experience teams and help these companies transform their operations. We believe in a future where it becomes normal to work with AI agents, in a responsible and trained way.
Do you have any tips you might like to share with founders?
Find the best people with different skill-sets that are just as motivated as you! Don’t overthink starting, you mostly likely have nothing to lose. Stay persistent and consistent, over time you’ll reap the benefits.
