American Express Backs AI Growth Platform for Small Businesses

American Express's venture arm has invested in Pie, a New York-based startup that offers an artificial intelligence growth platform to small businesses. This follows Pie's emergence from stealth mode in June with a $19.5 million Series A funding round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners.

Pie sells three products: AI Search, Growth, and Front Desk. The latter is a voice agent that answers inbound calls and takes bookings for small business owners who cannot pick up the phone. The company's go-to-market approach involves partnerships with vertical software platforms that already serve small businesses, such as pet care software MoeGo.

The partnership with MoeGo has placed Pie's growth capabilities directly inside software used by over 10,000 modern pet care businesses. Participating businesses have generated an average of a 15x return on ad spend in the first few weeks, according to Emma Chen, Co-Founder of MoeGo.

Pie has driven more than 100,000 phone calls to small businesses and customers have seen 15% to 20% year-over-year sales growth. The company's commercial proposition is that it turns platform partners' software into an integrated growth suite that helps merchants acquire new customers while supporting retention and incremental software revenue.