Cloud-based customer support solution provider Freshdesk, has announced the acquisition of Chatimity. It is a social chat platform that develops artificial intelligence (AI) and chatbot technology.
This is the sixth acquisition for Freshdesk in the last 14 months. The company believes that Chatimity’s technology will help it scale chat infrastructure and build next gen chat products.
While the size of the deal is not yet known, the company’s spokesperson has confirmed that it is a cash + equity deal. As a part of this deal, the seven-member Chatimity team has already moved to Chennai and joined Freshdesk, where they will work towards enhancing the company’s live chat offerings.
Commenting on this acquisition, Girish Mathrubootham, founder and CEO of Freshdesk, said,
People want a fast, personalised response. Chat will play an important role in the future of communication for customer service but scaling that infrastructure continues to be a challenge.
Tarkeshwar Thakur, Co-founder and CEO of Chatimity, said,
Our team was able to get a glimpse of what Freshdesk was already working on and we immediately knew that our team and technology would complement and accelerate product development at Freshdesk with a strong focus on AI and chat tech. Delivering a top-notch customer experience over chat continues to be a challenge for many companies, a problem we intend to solve with some of the next-gen chat products we are building at Freshdesk.
Chatimity was founded in May 2011 in Bengaluru by Tarkeshwar Thakur and Aravind Murthy. Before founding Chatimity, they worked together on Google Music Search. Chatimity was built to enable user interactions and improve engagement for its three million users.
The multipurpose AI-based bot from the company — MITI, uses a combination of NLP (Natural Language Processing), state machines and AIML (Artificial Intelligence Markup Language) to hold conversations across thousands of users in real time.
Recently, in April 2016, Freshdesk acquired Airwoot – a startup that uses machine learning to help brands deliver quick customer service on social media. In May, the company expanded its footprints and has opened a new regional office in Berlin, Germany.
