Helpshift Inc., an in-app customer support platform, has raised $3.2 million in seed funding from Nexus Venture Partners and True Ventures.
Set up in 2011 by two Indian techies, the San Francisco-headquartered startup offers mobile solution as SaaS, hosted in the Cloud. It currently provides support for Apple devices (iOS) and HTML5, and is working towards more cross-platform solutions.
Helpshift provides a native software development kit (SDK) that integrates with mobile applications to provide an ‘in-app’ customer support experience. The support screens can be customised to match the apps’ visual style and unlike traditional web-based solutions, Helpshift is designed to be instantly searchable and available even when a device is not connected to any network (offline).
The tech startup was founded by Abinash Tripathy (CEO) and Baishampayan Ghose (CTO). Tripathy holds an MS degree from the American University, Washington DC, and earlier worked with companies like Infinitely Beta, Yahoo and Openwave Systems Inc. Ghose holds an engineering degree from Shivaji University (Kolhapur) and earlier co-founded Paisa.com and oCricket.com, apart from working at Cleartrip Travel Services.
“Our early customers indicated that more than 80 per cent of inbound customer enquiries were for common issues that already had solutions published in the FAQ sections. But currently, FAQs are not searchable and given the smaller mobile form factor, mobile users opt to submit a ticket instead of browsing through content pages on the device,†said Tripathy.
In a bid solve such issues, the company’s solution includes an in-app mobile messaging experience for users to communicate via short messages about the problems they are facing. Detailed, device-specific diagnostics and screenshots can be sent inline with these messages, which would enable a customer service representative to address customer issues from the Helpshift dashboard in real time.
Commenting on the investment, True Ventures’ founding partner Phil Black said, “The proliferation of mobile apps has changed how companies interact with their customers, and customer service must evolve beyond the traditional model. With its in-app customer support solution, Helpshift is creating an entirely new customer service model for today’s mobile ecosystem.â€
True Ventures is a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm that invests in early-stage technology startups. Nexus Venture Partners is a leading venture capital fund in India that has an active portfolio of over 40 companies including PubMatic, DimDim (acquired by Salesforce), Snapdeal, MapmyIndia, Netmagic (acquired by NTT), Komli, Druva, Unmetric and Bigshoebazaar, among others.
(Edited by Sanghamitra Mandal)