Enterprise software firm Freshworks Inc. on Thursday said it has acquired Gurugram-based chat-bot start-up Joe Hukum to launch its own chat-bot powered solutions. It did not disclose the size of the transaction.
Freshworks is the rechristened avatar of Freshdesk Inc., the San Bruno, California-based firm that makes cloud-based solutions for customer support and other functions.
“As customer preferences shift from traditional phone tree based call centre support, chat-bots offer a new support experience, while essentially solving the age old challenge of triaging customer inquiries and routing that to the right support agent. These are still early days for chat-bots, but Joe Hukum’s innovative team and technology will help our clients better engage and support their customers,” said Girish Mathrubootham, founder and chief executive officer of Freshworks.
Joe Hukum started out in 2015 as a chat-bot platform for ordering food and booking services, but later pivoted to focus on business-to-business. Its founders Arihant Jain, Ajeet Kushwaha and Rahul Agarwal were earlier part of the founding teams at two prominent health-tech start-ups—HealthKart and 1mg.
After the acquisition, the team at Joe Hukum will join Freshworks. “Being a part of Freshworks is super exciting for all of us as it gives us a platform that provides us scale and reach and impact hundreds of thousands of customers,” co-founder Jain said in statement.
According to a Gartner report, cited by Freshworks, 40% of enterprises will be actively using chat-bots to facilitate business processes by 2019.
Joe Hukum will now build bots on top of existing Freshworks products, undertaking tasks like workflow automation for demand generation, knowledge management, and dynamic in-app self service, Freshworks said. Joe Hukum uses a “decision tree framework” that automates sales, service, and support workflows, across various channels and user interfaces.
This marks the eighth acquisition for Freshworks—the first one was in 2015—that have been primarily aimed at acquiring capabilities in modern technologies like cloud and artificial intelligence.
Founded in 2010, Freshworks is one of the most-well funded Saas (software-as-a-service) start-up, having raised about $150 million.
Source: Mint