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August 04, 2024 | Tom Ballard

AGYL AI combines three companies under one brand

The umbrella company includes AGYL AI, a suite of offerings that also includes EKOM, specific to eCommerce as its name suggests, and AGYL Labs, the collaboration and joint ventures arm of the parent organization.

“We have been following our roadmap,” Jon Ricketts told us recently when we caught up with the Founder of Writerly, the artificial intelligence-powered platform that allows teams of all sizes to create, distribute, and integrate omnichannel communications that enhance business outcomes.

It had been more than a year since we first posted this teknovation.biz article about Writerly in March 2023. What we learned during our most recent interview is that Writerly is now one part of AGYL AI, a suite of offerings that also includes EKOM, specific to eCommerce as its name suggests, and AGYL Labs, the collaboration and joint ventures arm of the parent organization.

Headquartered in The Gulch area of Nashville with additional offices in Brooklyn, NY, the original Writerly Technologies Inc. was rebranded as AGYL AI Inc. earlier this year. The consolidation of its offerings under the AGYL AI umbrella allows the company to streamline operations and accelerate growth.

“Agility is and will continue to be one of our leading competencies as an organization,” Ricketts said about the name change. “Our rebranding reflects a growing organization that’s serving a number of customer bases in distinct markets. It also allows us to better align our products and our messaging as we continue to scale customer acquisition and operations.”

To illustrate the rapid growth, AGYL AI proudly proclaims that it has more than one million users across both Writerly and EKOM with the latter announcing in June the release of EKOM 4.0. That latest version came just a little more than a year after first launching a private Beta in May 2023 and going live three months later.

“We took a lot of learnings from our Writerly experience,” Ricketts said of the EKOM offering.

EKOM 4.0 includes the new metadata optimization plans, multi-brand content moderation, and private enrollment into EKOM’s beta program for the Amazon Marketplace. EKOM is also raising a $2 million round.

“Customer acquisition and revenue should negate the need for an additional capital raise until our Series A as we invest in distribution channels to help us scale and also invest in those things that are working,” Ricketts says.

On the EKOM website, the focus is described as bridging “the gap between fluctuating demand and reliable supply-side data by developing a solution that seamlessly aligns these elements. EKOM leverages cutting-edge technology to infuse real-time market data into eCommerce content, ensuring brands can stay ahead of trends and customer expectations. By automating this process, we empower businesses to optimize their digital stores with precision and efficiency, ultimately driving growth and enhancing customer satisfaction.”

For now, EKOM is consuming the energy of the AGYL AI team.

“Writerly doesn’t require a lot . . . we’re still acquiring customers,” Ricketts says. “We see a really interesting future for Writerly, but we don’t have to act on those right now.”

The AGYL AI team includes nine full-time people and 18 or 19 part-timers or contractors.

Ricketts, who still lives in Knoxville, describes AGYL AI as more of a blue collar company than a Silicon Valley start-up.

“We build things,” he says.



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