Rodrigo Rossoni and Igor Sempre Bom, two entrepreneurs with distinct backgrounds, were at an artificial intelligence event in Florianópolis discussing an old problem: how to make B2B negotiations more efficient?
Igor, with over 30 years of experience in the textile industry, had a list of processes he wanted to automate. One of them seemed impossible: negotiating simultaneously with 60 suppliers. "It's impossible to do that with human labor," he thought.
Shortly after that conversation, in December 2024, DGenny, a super-purchasing agent for construction companies, was launched, using artificial intelligence to automate negotiations with suppliers via WhatsApp – a channel responsible for more than 80% of B2B transactions in Latin America.
“The first line of code was ready on December 19, 2024. By 2025, we were already doing demonstrations and meetings. And, in May, we started selling the product,” Rossoni tells NeoFeed .
DGenny is part of a wave of AI-native startups that are able to quickly, but with a lot of technology, bring a product to market, test it, and start generating revenue.
“AI has put us back in the game. The technology has allowed us to move quickly in product design and validation with customers, without technical bottlenecks,” says Rossoni.
Now, the company founded by Rossoni and Sempre Bom has just received its first institutional check from ABSeed. This represents an investment of R$ 2 million, with the possibility of extension, to gain traction and scale rapidly. According to Rossoni, approximately 70% of the funds will be applied to marketing, sales, and customer service.
“We are experiencing a clear shift: it’s no longer about large teams building great products, but about small teams with a strong vision of the product, the business, and the problem, managing to create very robust solutions and gain traction much faster,” says Geraldo Melzer, partner at ABSeed.
Today, DGenny serves 30 medium and large construction companies and aims to reach 150 clients by the end of the year. The strategy is to focus on construction companies, a segment with low digitalization and high operational complexity. The team, currently with five people, is expected to double by December.
The solution searches for suppliers, validates contacts, initiates conversations, and negotiates like a human, matching offers in real time for the buyer.
According to Rossoni, the tool allows for cost reduction, increased productivity, and operational efficiency. "It's not just about saving money, it's about saving time and resources. This changes the dynamics of construction projects through administration," he says.
Furthermore, the platform already integrates with the main ERPs on the market, such as Totvs and Senior, among others. The business model is a B2B SaaS (Software as a Service), with billing based on transaction volume, allowing for rapid growth.
In the fundraising process for this round, DGenny relied on Rodrigo Luchtenberg, from Águia Leão, as an advisor.
A sales channel
In Latin America, the union of conversational AI, such as ChatGPT, together with WhatsApp (especially in Brazil), is helping to give rise to the newest generation of startups that could become billion-dollar companies under the motto "WhatsApp first, AI made".
So much so that WhatsApp created a startup hub in Brazil, with the goal of connecting with these entrepreneurs. The initiative marked a strategic move to position the app not only as a communication tool.
The first selection of startups for the WhatsApp hub had 200 participants. But only half of them were approved. Priority was given to those with tested products and active customers, avoiding companies in very early stages.
Among those selected, the vast majority operate in the areas of sales and financial services. But there are startups from various sectors, such as agribusiness, education, legal, marketing, real estate, security, among others.
These include names like BeConfident and Storm Education, offering English courses; ClickSign, providing digital signatures; Lastro, a real estate company; Jota, an online bank; Resolva AI, a customer service provider; and Vai de Bus, an urban transportation company.
