Deceived and exploited, she developed an AI-controlled app for immigrants like herself

Immigrants face enormous challenges and difficulties. Especially without a local circle of family or friends to rely on, new immigrants are often in the dark when it comes to reliable information about important services like housing, health care and banking.

After being scammed and exploited, an immigrant founder decided to help other immigrants deal with such issues and has built an AI-powered service based on data specifically tailored to these needs: Imii is an AI Assistant for immigrants to help them settle and integrate into their new home countries.

The startup's co-founder, Jane Fisher, was born and raised in Japan in a family of immigrants from the Soviet Union. “My father was a prominent figure in Japanese studies and a published author when he moved to Japan,” she told TechCrunch. “But for many years he was discriminated against and belittled by his colleagues simply because he was an immigrant and therefore undesirable by default,” she said.

Fisher is understandably passionate about this topic. “I founded imii because I know the problems of immigration first hand. I have had different experiences moving to another country – both accompanied (with a coordinator accompanying me) and alone (without external guidance). Although the latter moved to the UK, where I had learned the language and become fluent, this had a huge impact on my mental health and my adjustment period. I was also cheated along the way,” she added.

Imii offers immigrants personalized advice and connects them with trusted local providers and companies that speak their language whenever possible. In the app, users register, answer a few questions and receive personalized instructions. The chatbot – which will be temporarily operated by ChatGPT 4o until the startup completes a fundraising campaign – offers advice on housing, banking and healthcare. And if it can't help with a query, users can contact the Imii team directly for help.

“It is based on our content database and provides user-friendly answers to specific questions. Our goal is to make imii sound like an empathetic human assistant rather than a soulless database,” said Fisher. Its co-founder and CTO, Alexandra Miltsin, previously worked at Zoopla and Yelp, where she led the development of several AI-powered products.

In addition to the potential societal benefits, Fisher said the app could also benefit companies hiring international talent as it could reduce move management costs, improve employee well-being and productivity, and potentially reduce staff turnover.

The startup also offers a version for companies that allows them to list their services and specify their target audience. Employers can integrate Imii into their HR processes and give international employees access to the app to prepare them for their move.

“Several service providers have reached out to us to explore partnership opportunities, which we are currently finalizing,” Fisher said.

There are already some emerging and established players in the immigration and resettlement technology space. Some of these focus on the actual immigration process, others on “local” settlement.

Matutto (mainly B2C) focuses on providing moving services directly to consumers and grew out of TechStars. Meanwhile, Benivo (B2B) specializes in providing relocation solutions for companies and has raised a total of $30 million.

Welcome Tech (B2C, not yet launched) claims to provide a digital platform designed to assist immigrants with various aspects of resettlement. In April 2022, the company raised $30 million, bringing its total to $73 million, but has not come out of stealth since 2022.

There are also some others like Perchpeek (B2B), Settly (B2B), Relocity (B2B), and Localyze (B2B).

However, Fisher says, few of her competitors think deeply about the immigrant experience: “We focus on people. We care more about the immigrant experience than creating yet another corporate relocation tech software. That’s why we started with a very lean B2C approach to make a perhaps simpler but truly impact-oriented product available to everyone and offer improved versions to commercial beneficiaries.”

“We don’t think a huge company needs another moving service. We believe start-ups, SMEs, NGOs and organizations like the UK NHS are doing this,” she added.

She also said the app will evolve from using OpenAI to providing more comprehensive services: “It's not just about information, but also whether they need credit building for immigrants or legal assistance.” That's not something you just do can be achieved through a GPT wrapper.”

The startup currently offers the app on a freemium basis for individual users and as a paid service with moving/settling assistance for B2B customers. It also charges service providers on its marketplace an affiliate marketing commission.

Imii seems to be very trendy.

According to a United Nations report, approximately 281 million people worldwide are considered international migrants, representing 3.6% of the world's population. Additionally, the World Bank predicts that climate change could displace up to 216 million people by 2050. And the UNHCR estimates that the number of climate refugees will increase significantly in the coming years. Some forecasts suggest that up to 1.2 billion people worldwide could be displaced due to climate-related events by 2050.