Spectrm Ltd., a German startup that sells an artificial intelligence-based marketing platform for instant messenger tools, announced today it has raised $3 million in a Series A round of funding led by Runa Capital.

Spectrm sells a platform that automates personalized, one-on-one conversations with customers over messenger apps such as Facebook Messenger. The platform is designed to help marketers create chatbots that can guide customers from websites and advertisements to making a final purchase.

It uses natural language processing AI to make conversations with customers more personal, while also generating data on those customers’ preferences. This data can then be used by marketing teams to build more meaningful segments that can be used help to optimize their sales funnels.

The company’s platform has already gotten the attention of Facebook Inc., which named Spectrm as a strategic developer partner. Meanwhile Gartner Inc. has labeled Spectrm as a “Cool Vendor” in the natural language processing business.

The appeal of a messenger-based marketing platform is pretty obvious, with Global WebIndex’s research showing that the average social media user typically spends more than two hours a day engaged with messaging apps. The company said Facebook Messenger marketing has 10 to 80 times better engagement than email but only 1% of businesses engages customers automatically or with chatbots.

Spectrm has racked up a pretty impressive list of customers, including the likes of eBay Inc., Ford Motor Co., KLM Royal Dutch Airlines and Groupe Renault.

“We believe conversation is a deeply human experience that is more effective and more insightful than any other format in marketing,” said Spectrm co-founder and Chief Executive Max Koziolek. “Our vision is to combine the power of conversations with the reach of the largest platforms in the world.”

Image: Spectrm