Key Takeaways
- Ecuador-born Jelou AI raised $10 million in Series A funding led by Wellington Access Ventures, with participation from Krealo (Credicorp’s corporate venture arm) and Collide Capital, bringing total funding to $13 million.
- The capital will scale Brain OS, Jelou’s AI app builder, enabling businesses to automate payments, identity verification, credit applications, and contract signatures all inside a single WhatsApp conversation.
- Jelou serves 500+ companies across 13+ countries, including Arca Continental, Banco de Crédito del Perú, AB InBev, and Falabella Colombia, and has processed over $100 million in financial operations through its AI agents.
- Conversational commerce in emerging markets is projected to exceed $130 billion, and over 30% of transactions are abandoned when users are pushed outside chat – Jelou is built to close that gap.
Quick Recap
Jelou AI, the Guayaquil, Ecuador-founded fintech, has officially announced a $10 million Series A to expand its WhatsApp-native transactional AI platform across the Americas. The round was led by Wellington Access Ventures, with backing from Krealo (Credicorp’s CVC) and Collide Capital. This follows a $3 million seed round previously led by Act One Ventures and Arca Continental Ventures.
CEO and co-founder Luis Loaiza confirmed the raise, describing Jelou Brain as an effort to “transform everyday texting and calling into the next computing environment”. The announcement was made via official channels, including a post by Loaiza on X (formerly Twitter) and a Globe Newswire press release dated January 26, 2026.
How Jelou Is Turning WhatsApp Into A Global Banking Connection via @forbes
— Luis Loaiza (@luisloaiza) January 26, 2026
We just raised a $10M Series A 🔥 and more than anything, we’re grateful to our team, who have been shipping, and operating through complexity for years. Now begins a phase of focused, high-standard…
Brain OS Powers Next-Gen In-Chat Transactions
At the core of Jelou’s platform is Brain OS, an infrastructure layer that enables businesses and developers to deploy AI agents directly connected to banking cores, payment processors, KYC providers, ERP systems, and CRM platforms. This architecture supports real time data exchange and transactional integration across critical financial and enterprise systems, positioning the platform beyond conversational interfaces and into operational execution.
Unlike conventional chatbots that primarily respond to queries or redirect users to external portals, Jelou’s agents are designed to perform live actions within messaging environments. These include initiating payments, verifying customer identity, progressing credit approval workflows, and securing electronic signatures, all within WhatsApp. By embedding transaction capability directly into a widely adopted communication channel, the platform streamlines customer journeys while maintaining system level connectivity and compliance controls.
The platform includes a web-based studio with over 3,000 integrations and a conversation management layer for supervising high-volume interactions. Jelou positions itself as the “Replit” for building WhatsApp AI apps that move money, enabling micro-SaaS creators and enterprises alike to deploy multiple transactional agents with minimal setup. This execution-first approach is especially critical in Latin America, where WhatsApp dominates communication and fragmented payment rails demand hyper-local integrations.
Rise of Transactional AI in Latin America
The timing of Jelou’s raise is not coincidental. Latin America has emerged as one of the fastest-growing regions for conversational commerce, with WhatsApp penetration reaching 80-90% of the population (550 million users) in many markets. Yet, most enterprise AI deployed in these messaging channels remains limited to answering FAQs rather than completing actual financial actions.
Enterprises across banking, retail, and logistics are under increasing pressure to reduce operational costs and improve conversion rates. When users are forced out of chat to complete transactions via separate portals or call centers, abandonment rates spike. Jelou’s model addresses this by embedding execution directly inside the conversation, shortening the operational loop and reducing friction.
Regulatory diversity across Latin American countries adds another layer of complexity. Jelou’s origins in regulated Ecuadorian banking environments have given it a compliance-first DNA, making it well-suited to operate across markets with varying rules.
Competitive Landscape
| Feature / Metric | Jelou AI | Yalo | Truora |
| Headquarters | Guayaquil, Ecuador / New York | Mexico City, Mexico | Bogotá, Colombia |
| Founded | 2017 | ~2016 | 2018 |
| Total Funding | $13M (Seed + Series A) | ~$85M+ (through Series C extension) | $18.5M (Seed + Series A) |
| Core Platform | Brain OS – transactional AI agent builder | Conversational commerce & AI marketing | TruConnect – identity verification & onboarding via WhatsApp |
| Primary Use Cases | Payments, KYC, credit apps, e-signatures inside chat | Retail sales, personalized marketing, AI-driven commerce | User authentication, facial recognition, document verification |
| Transactional Capabilities | Full financial execution (payments, underwriting, signatures) | Commerce-focused (orders, promotions, merchant tools) | Authentication & onboarding; limited transactional depth |
| Enterprise Clients | 500+ (AB InBev, BCP, Arca Continental, Falabella) | 2.6M+ merchants; Coca-Cola, Nestlé, Walmart | 400+ (Rappi, MercadoLibre, Bancolombia) |
| Countries Active | 13+ | LatAm-wide + Southeast Asia | 9+ in LatAm |
| Integrations | 3,000+ via Brain OS studio | Custom enterprise integrations | WhatsApp-native via TruConnect |
| Key Differentiator | End-to-end financial transaction execution in chat | Scale in traditional retail and FMCG verticals | WhatsApp-first identity and KYC specialization |
Strategic Analysis
Jelou wins clearly in transactional depth – no other LatAm-focused competitor offers the same end-to-end financial execution (payments, credit origination, signatures) natively inside WhatsApp. Yalo, however, dominates in scale and retail reach, serving over 2.6 million merchants with a focus on FMCG brands and conversational marketing making it more of a commerce platform than a fintech agent builder.
Truora’s strength is identity verification and onboarding, which overlaps with one component of Jelou’s offering but lacks the broader transactional execution layer. For enterprises looking for a single platform to move money securely inside messaging, Jelou currently stands alone in its category in Latin America.
Bayelsa Watch’s Takeaway
I think this is a big deal, and that assessment is grounded in the structural realities of the Latin American fintech landscape. A persistent gap has existed between where customer conversations occur, primarily on WhatsApp, and where financial transactions are executed, such as banking portals, mobile applications, and call centers. This separation has historically created friction, increased drop off rates, and reduced operational efficiency across customer journeys.
Jelou’s approach addresses this disconnect by embedding financial infrastructure directly within chat interfaces rather than redirecting users to external systems. The platform is positioned not as a traditional chatbot layer, but as a transaction enabling framework that allows real operations to occur inside the messaging environment. This shift from conversational assistance to embedded financial execution represents a structural change in how digital financial services can be delivered across the region.
