Chennai's Freshdesk Acquires Social Engagement Tool Airwoot

Chennai-based customer support platform Freshdesk has acquired New Delhi-based Memetic Labs Technologies, the creators the Airwoot SaaS-based helpdesk product to manage customers over social media, for an undisclosed sum.

Airwoot will continue as a standalone product, the company said, adding that its software uses deep learning and virality scores to alert customer services agents when a conversation goes out of control on social media. The startup claims a response time of under two minutes for 98 percent of customers.

This is Freshdesk's fifth acquisition, the Tiger Global backed company's previous acquisitions include 1CLICK, a live video chat platform, Frilp, a social recommendation app, Konotor, a mobile first user engagement platform, and Framebench, a platform for creative collaboration.

"Airwoot's Artificial Intelligence technology has been instrumental in helping brands do this effortlessly. Harnessing the power of machine learning, Airwoot filters out the noise and marketing chatter from your social handles and allows you to respond to customer queries, then and there," said Girish Mathrubootham, Founder and CEO of Freshdesk, in a blog discussing the acquisition. Some brands see over 10,000 interactions on a day-to-day basis with their customers, Airwoot helps tackle exponential load, and focus on exactly what customer issues need to be responded to, he added.

Founded in 2012 by Saurabh Arora, Prabhat Saraswat, and Achal Aggarwal, Airwoot had raised funding from Kae Capital and prominent angel investors in August 2013. The startup's clients include Jet Airways, Paytm, Snapdeal, Ola, Mobikwik, Goibibo, MakeMyTrip, and Grofers. Airwoot's team has already shifted to Chennai, and plans to expand its team size by three times, the company said.