The money will primarily be used to hire technology professionals who will help with the continuous development of the platform. The round was led by Costanoa Ventures, with participation from MAYA, Canaan, Latitud, Norte, FJ Labs, 1616, BFF and angel investors.

Launching in April, Assis acts as a virtual assistant for solopreneurs, helping them to succeed by offering differentiated experiences for their clients. A recent study from the Brazil Bureau of Statistics, 25.5 million people in Brazil are self-employed. These solopreneurs must perform many tasks beyond their specialization, such as marketing, sales, customer support, finance, legal, etc. The accumulation of roles means they work up to 56% more weekly hours than registered employees. Furthermore, solopreneurs typically work an average of 9.3 hours daily, often including weekends. Despite this challenge, the number of people pursuing the dream of owning a business has grown by about 7% per year between 2015 and 2021.

In fact, 46% of Brazilians aspire to be solopreneurs, and Assis is here to help. Assis assists in the entire sales process as the main ally of entrepreneurs, from the first click to the money deposited in the account. The startup helps the entire customer flow through the bot integrated with ChatGPT and the app. This includes initial contact, reminding them of tasks, checking for questions, sending quotes, checking availability and making payments.

Assis was founded by Raphael Machioni, co-founder and former CEO of Vee Benefícios, which was sold to the French giant Swile in 2020, João Bergamo, former CFO of Vee Benefícios, and Vagner Dutra, founding technology team member of PicPay.

"When you're a solo entrepreneur, it's not enough to be good at your craft. You must also juggle marketing, sales, administration, legal and financial tasks. This additional work is especially cumbersome, because it typically is done manually or using many different software tools,” said Machioni, who explained that the Assis platform is already garnering a loyal following of initial customers.

Machioni added, "I was eager to fully embed myself and understand the challenges of our customers so I worked as an assistant for our first beta users and realized that when they began to scale, the first hire they made was an assistant. It's virtually impossible to do all the work required, provide excellent service, ensure an incredible experience and still maintain a good quality of life.”

His partner, Vagner Dutra, emphasized that it was with this experience that the trio of founders was sure they are solving one of the largest problems in Brazil, "We are sure that we are solving a huge problem that was already being addressed at a high cost, without technology and design."
The impact of Assis on the lives of entrepreneurs is enormous. Success is even more evident when customers notice they managed to sell more - on avg. 23% for the first clients - in addition to increasing their job satisfaction and having more free time.

“We will open our waitlist shortly. Soon, Assis will be available to all entrepreneurs," concluded Machioni.