Helpchat, an instant messenger based platform which acts as a personal assistant to connect you with relevant local businesses, has announced the acquisition of Niffler, a Mumbai-based startup which helps users to discover deal and discounts from traditional brick-and-mortar stores.
The financial details of the acquisition is not disclosed. As a part of the deal, the entire team of Niffler will now join Helpchat. It will help Helpchat in expanding its services to other cities such as Pune and Mumbai where Niffler has already established its presence.
We look forward to combining our brand synergies and expertise with theirs and setting new benchmarks in the way consumer-get their daily task done in India.
– Edul Patel, co-founder of Niffler
Niffler was founded by Edul Patel, Prince Arora and Viraj Shah in July 2014. It helps in finding deals and discount from offline merchants across range of categories, including food and drinks, spas and salons, apparel and home décor. It had raised funding worth $1 million in March 2015 from SAIF partners.
Having strong presence in Mumbai, NCR, Bangalore, Hyderabad & Pune, it has partnered with some notable brands like McDonald’s, Ammi’s Biryani, Birdys, Cafe Moshes and Four Fountains De-Stress Spa to provide exclusive offers for Niffler users.
The mobile app of Niffler learns from user’s habits and serves up curated deals based on items that a user likes. It is also location-aware, wherein it notifies users of new offers as soon as they go live.
Helpchat was earlier known as Akosha. It rebranded itself as Helpchat when it changed its business model from chat based complaints redressal to personal assistance. It had raised around Rs.100 crore from Sequoia Capital in May this year.
In Hlepchat, you just have to tell what you want to get done and their trained experts will respond to you. They will order what you need and get them delivered to your place.
It currently has more than 600 employees with offices in Bengaluru, New Delhi and Mumbai. The company claims to be handling 50,000 requests a day. Out of those requests, almost 30% comes from Bengaluru.
Ankur Singla, CEO and Founder, Helpchat said,
“We are geared for aggressive pan-India growth in the coming few months. The acquisition of Niffler is one of the first major steps in this direction. Niffler team has expertise on community-driven experiences and retailer supported commerce. They share our vision of enabling consumers to get more done through chat-based personal assistance. Acquisition will also help Helpchat accelerate the growth of its personal assistant engine across the areas of offline commerce and local deals based on user’s intent.”
