Investors support Helpshift with $23M in funding for R&D

Helpshift raises $23M in their Series B funding from new and existing investors like Microsoft Ventures and Salesforce Ventures.  The company however did not disclose the amount of stake it diluted in this process.

The investment is notable because it adds two new, strategic investors — Microsoft (in one of the first investments made out of its new Microsoft Ventures investment arm) and Salesforce. Previous investors Intel Capital (which is still investing, despite the restructure), Nexus Venture Partners, True Ventures and Visionnaire Ventures also participated, bringing the total raised by Helpshift to $36.2 million.

Helpshift builds customer support platform for mobile and web. Their support platform includes functionalities such as in-app FAQs, in-app chat, a full CRM ticketing system, in-app campaigns and surveys. Helpshift claims that its software has been installed in over 1.3 billion devices worldwide, serving over 300 million cellphone customers monthly.

Abinash Tripathy, CEO & Co-founder

In this context Abinash Tripathy, CEO & Co-founder, Helpshift said, “…There is an exciting world ahead of us where customers can proactively receive help even before they face a problem through predictive machine learning, customers can chat with intelligent bots to receive timely help and algorithms based on data can make customer support agents ‘real superheros.’ This new round of funding enables us to take what we started to the next level – the world of autonomous customer support”.

These funds would be used to fuel expansion of its research & development and its sales & marketing functions.
When asked about view on on this investment, Nagraj Kashyap, corporate vice president, Microsoft Ventures said, “Helpshift has been a great partner for Microsoft and our investment today represents our confidence in their messaging-based approach to customer service, as we hold a shared value of providing the seamless experience customers want”.

Helpshift has 60 people engineering team in Pune and 30 member sales and marketing team in San Francisco. The company is also looking to expand into Bangalore in the next two quarters.