Cheerio AI raises Rs 8 crore seed round led by Artha Venture Fund II

New Delhi: Cheerio AI, a customer engagement platform that uses artificial intelligence to manage marketing, support and sales communication, has raised Rs 8 crore in a seed funding round led by Artha Venture Fund II.

The round also saw participation from Hyderabad Angels, TiE Angels, LetsVenture, Invention Engine and several angel investors including Arjun Vaidya, Anand Shahni (WedMeGood), Vivek Mathur (ex-Elevation Capital), Ajeet Khurana, as well as early customers Habuild and Nitin Verma (InstaAstro).

According to the company, the capital will be used to develop additional AI capabilities, including a proprietary small-model large language model (LLM) for advertisement generation. The platform also plans to expand beyond messaging into voice and video communication and scale its AI-driven automation tools.

Cheerio AI said its revenue has grown by 450% year-on-year over the past two years. The company also plans to expand its workforce across engineering, artificial intelligence, enterprise sales and customer success over the next six months.

Speaking on the announcement, Nishant Das, Co-founder at Cheerio AI, said, “Avinash, Priam, and I are thrilled to partner with Artha and our co-investors. This investment is a strong validation of our vision and will enable us to significantly deepen our AI-driven automation capabilities while accelerating our expansion into the enterprise segment. At Cheerio AI, we envision a future where businesses operate with just three employees - the business founder, the technology founder, and Cheerio AI. This funding is a crucial step toward making that vision a reality.”

Cheerio AI provides a platform that integrates marketing, support and sales workflows across communication channels, including WhatsApp, email, SMS, social messaging and in-app interactions. The company said the system uses automation to optimise conversions, repeat purchases and customer lifetime value.

Anirudh A. Damani, Managing Partner at Artha Venture Fund, said, “Our decision to invest in Cheerio AI is anchored in strong conviction around the long-term opportunity this team is building toward. As enterprises operate across an increasingly complex set of digital channels, customer retention and lifetime value optimization have become mission-critical. Cheerio’s AI-native approach to unifying and orchestrating customer engagement positions it well to become a category-defining platform in this space.

This round carried strong ecosystem validation from us. The opportunity was referred by one of our LPs, and after we shared it with the founders in our portfolio for our feedback, they too chose to invest alongside us! When experienced operators commit their own capital, it reinforces both founder quality and execution depth. That conviction mattered.”

The company said it currently works with more than 150 enterprise customers across six industries and estimates that its automation tools have generated more than Rs 500 crore in additional revenue for its clients through retention-focused engagement strategies.