Jelou, a company founded in Ecuador that builds AI agents for business and financial operations inside WhatsApp, raised a $10m Series A, announced in late January 2026. Wellington Access Ventures led the round, with Krealo, the corporate venture arm of Credicorp, and Collide Capital participating, according to Jelou's announcement and Fintech Global.
The round brings total funding to $13m, after a $3m seed round led by Act One Ventures and Arca Continental Ventures. No valuation was disclosed.
“Users already live in messaging. We're making it the place where real operations happen.”Luis Loaiza, Co-founder and CEO, Jelou
What Jelou does
Jelou was founded in 2017 in Ecuador. Its product, Brain OS, is an AI app builder that combines payments, identity verification, data capture, underwriting, workflows and enterprise integrations in a WhatsApp-native system, according to the announcement. Companies can connect AI agents to banking cores, payment processors, identity-verification providers, enterprise resource planning systems, inventory systems and customer-relationship systems.
Fintech Global said Brain connects to a company's existing systems through a web studio with more than 3,000 integrations, and includes a conversation-management layer for teams that handle high message volumes. Transactions supported include payments, account opening, identity verification, credit underwriting and document signing.
Pulse 2.0 added that Jelou was founded by Loaiza and Vera in 2017 in Ecuador. None of the sources named a city, and none gave a headcount.
Customers and traction
Jelou says it has more than 500 business customers in more than 13 countries and has processed over $100m in financial products through in-chat operations. Named customers include Arca Continental, Banco de Crédito del Perú, AB InBev, Banco Guayaquil, Falabella Colombia and Banco Unión. These figures come from the company and were not independently verified. Revenue and headcount were not disclosed.
Luis Loaiza, co-founder and chief executive, and Alberto Vera are named as founders in the announcement.
What the money is for
Jelou said the funds will scale adoption of Brain OS, open offices in Mexico and Colombia, strengthen its presence in Peru and enter Brazil and the US. Fintech Global reported a roadmap of turning Brain into an operating system for conversational business and, longer term, letting companies and developers build and manage production-ready WhatsApp apps from a prompt.
Loaiza said: "Users already live in messaging. We're making it the place where real operations happen."
Pulse 2.0 reported that Jelou's longer-term aim is to make WhatsApp a primary operating layer for businesses across the region. Loaiza told it that when customers are most ready to act, things usually fall apart, which is the gap he says in-chat transactions are meant to close.
Who invested
Jackson Cummings, head of Wellington Access Ventures, said Jelou recognises that the future of AI is centred on communication channels embedded in everyday workflow. Adolfo Vinatea, chief executive of Krealo, said the company had built the most complete infrastructure for delivering regulated financial services.
Brian Hollins, founder and managing partner at Collide Capital, said: "Most AI companies are still building demos. Jelou is building the infrastructure for production."
Company website: jelou.ai