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The acquisition accelerates Freshdesk’s mission to deliver omni-channel customer service

Freshdesk, a global cloud-based customer support services company, has acquired Konotor, a mobile-first user engagement platform startup in Chennai (India).

The transaction details are not disclosed.

The acquisition accelerates Freshdesk’s mission to deliver omni-channel customer service, as per an official statement.

“Mobile-first companies face a unique set of challenges in customer support and user engagement, creating the need for a different solution. Konotor has demonstrated significant early success in addressing this need by enabling marquee apps to engage better with their users. The addition of Konotor to our product suite will help us create powerful customer experiences,” said Girish Mathrubootham, CEO of Freshdesk.

The development comes on the heels of Freshdesk’s acquisitions of video chat and co-browsing platform 1CLICK and social recommendation app Frilp.

Konotor was founded in 2012 by Srikrishnan Ganesan, Deepak Balasubramanyam and Vignesh Girishankar. The startup helps businesses engage with users through two-way messaging. Designed with the importance of mobile user experience in mind, it enables brands or businesses to talk directly to its users, share announcements or promotions, and provide support.

The company claims to be supporting more than 40 million users through its apps. Konotor’s customers include Zomato, BankBazaar.com, Faasos, and Times Internet.

Also Read: SaaS provider Freshdesk acquires Bangalore-based startup 1CLICK

The startup is backed by Target, Qualcomm Ventures, and Accel Partners.

“We have been working with the Freshdesk team for a while and share a similar vision and passion for improving customer experience,” said Ganesan. “Coming together with Freshdesk, we will be able to invest more in our technology, and leverage Freshdesk’s expertise in customer support.”

Started in 2010, Freshdesk is a provider of cloud-based customer support software. Its flagship product allows organisations to support customers through email, phone, websites, forums and social media.

Freshdesk claims that it has 50,000 customers around the world, including 3M, Honda, Hugo Boss, University of Pennsylvania, The Atlantic, and Petronas.

The company is headquartered in San Francisco (California) and has a development centre in Chennai.

In April this year, Freshdesk raised US$50 million in Series E round of funding from Tiger Global, Google Capital and Accel Partners.

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A range of startups that promise to make life easier for India’s millions got funding today – from a home services provider to a medtech startup to a cab search platform. And then there was one which just rechristened itself after a good injection of funding from top investors. Here are the seven that stole the limelight:

Springboard

Edtech company SlideRule has rebranded itself as Springboard. The company also announced US$1.7 million in seed funding today.

Investors in the round include Allen Blue, co-founder of LinkedIn; John Katzman, founder of the Princeton Review, 2U and The Noodle Companies; Naveen Tewari, founder and CEO of InMobi; Kartik Hosanagar, a Wharton School professor; 500 Startups, Blue Fog Capital, and others.

The funding will be used to increase capacity in existing courses, provide additional student services and support, and launch courses in new fields, the company said.

The company hopes the new name, Springboard, will more accurately reflect its mission to help aspirants advance their careers through self-paced, mentored courses.

“As the tech industry grows, employers can’t hire talent fast enough,” said Gautam Tambay, co-founder and CEO of Springboard. “There is incredible demand for trained data scientists and UX designers, even as 45 percent of college grads are underemployed and struggle to find affordable, effective ways to learn career-related skills.”

The company has provided a network of mentors to over 110 data science and design professionals over the past 12 months.

Housejoy

Home services provider Housejoy today announced INR 1.5 billion (US$23 million) in series B funding. The round was led by Amazon along with a consortium of new investors, including Vertex Ventures, Qualcomm, and Ru-Net Technology Partners. Existing investor Matrix Partners India also participated.

“Our new investment partners open up new possibilities for market expansion, new partnerships, and best practices in running a sustainable business. We look forward to the next stage of growth,” Sunil Goel, co-founder of Housejoy, said in a statement.

Housejoy has grown at breakneck pace since its launch in January this year. It has joined hands with more than 10,000 service providers across 11 cities.

See: Will $23m in funding help Housejoy resolve its home services mess?

Blubirch

Blubirch, which helps businesses manage their technology assets, today announced it has secured angel funding of US$2 million from Chicago Capital ventures, seasoned investor Sanjay Mehta, and others.

The Bangalore-based company operates in the reverse logistics space and helps businesses maximize value from unused inventory. It will use these funds to expand their services in India and other countries and strengthen its team to complement their capabilities.

It was founded by Sapan Jain, Jeby Cherian, Amit Goel, and Jayathirtha P. Katti last year.

“While technology is at the forefront of what we do, our main focus is to assist our clients in managing their complete range of technology assets. The fund raised will be used to enhance the technology platform and expand operations across six more cities,” said its CEO and co-founder Sapan.

The market size for reverse logistics is estimated to be US$20 billion. Blubirch plans to launch its consumer services and expects to reach INR600 million (US$8.9 million) in revenue by early next year.

MeraDoctor

MeraDoctor, an online platform for virtual consultations between doctors and patients, today said it had raised INR 70 million (US$1 million) in a pre-series A round led by Ronnie Screwvala’s Unilazer Ventures.

The round also saw participation from existing investor IndiaQuotient. The fresh funds will help the company extend its technology platform, scale up its doctor base, and add to its technology and management teams.

MeraDoctor was launched earlier this year and has helped over 300,000 people connect with doctors across India through a simple chat interface. It claims to connect patients with reputed physicians.

“We make it easy for everyone in India to have high quality health conversations on their phone. In just a few months after launching our app for live messaging with doctors, we’ve helped over 300,000 people connect with quality care,” says its CEO and co-founder Ajay Nair.

Cabsguru

Cabsguru, a cab search, comparison, and booking platform, has raised US$3.5 million in an angel round led by Prashanth Ranganathan, founder and CEO of Paysense.

The New Delhi-based startup is owned by Nohup Technologies. It was founded by Vikash Singh and Pulkit Ahuja last year.

Earlier this week, Cabsguru had announced the launch of a multiple cab operator search and booking facility called Robocab. “It has been programmed to solve the most common pain point of today’s cab users – the pain of seeing ‘No Cabs Available’ on the cab app screen during the peak morning and evening hours when you need your cabs the most,” Vikash says.

Cabsguru is present in 75 cities. As of date, Cabsguru has more than 120,000 organic users and handles more than 100,000 cab search, comparison, and booking queries on a monthly basis.

IBS Software

US private equity firm Blackstone Group has picked up a minority stake in IT solutions firm IBS Software for US$170 million from General Atlantic and other shareholders, according to a Reuters report.

IBS provides IT solutions for travel, transportation and logistics businesses. The deal is expected to close within a month, the report said.

Rubique

Bestdealfinance, an online marketplace for financial products, has undergone a brand revamp and changed its name to Rubique, which the company believes will help it connect better with customers.

Launched in October 2014, the Mumbai-based financial ecommerce portal provides end-to-end solutions for individual and small and medium enterprises. It offers home loans, auto loans, business loans, loans against property, apart from credit cards, healthcare, and construction equipment financing.

“We would like to bring transparency in the loan eco-system and make finance simple and accessible. To establish a greater connect with our brand, we started to rethink the brand strategy and positioning, including the name change,” company founder and CEO Manavjeet Singh said in a statement.

The company has signed up with 41 financial institutions for over 200 products. They have received almost 10,000 applications, of which 2,000 applications have been processed. Rubique closed its series A funding led by Kalaari Capital recently.

We’ve been bringing you cool Indian startups regularly. Check them out here.

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Whether you call them freelancers or digital nomads, there’s no ignoring the rising numbers of independent professionals who offer their services to a multitude of clients online. In Southeast Asia, the digital infrastructure and internet connectivity even in relatively remote areas has allowed a whole slew of talented individuals to get work from all over the world without stepping out their front door.

In 2014, Freelancer.com found there were almost 1.1 million professionals in the region using its site to connect with global clients. India claimed the top spot with almost 750,000 freelancers. They run the gamut from graphic designers to writers to programmers. But all of them have some things in common – they need the right tools to do their job, and networks and communities to be able to connect to peers and clients. Also, they need to get paid.

Since its product is very much relevant to that last part, PayPal, the grandaddy of online payments, has kicked off the Self Made scheme, designed to bring freelancers together for networking and socializing – and, obviously, to get them to use PayPal.

Living the freelancer way

The Self Made event that took place in Singapore’s Refinery, a co-working space for creators, in collaboration with Tech in Asia, brought on board a couple of established Southeast Asia nomads to talk about their experience in freelancing. Serial entrepreneur Jon Yongfook and UX designer Jon Myers shared what it’s like to be your own boss – even if it’s for a little while.

Yongfook is used to going back and forth on this. Having worked for advertising agencies like Leo Burnett Singapore and then founded Beatrix and, most recently, Intellihelper, he has been on both sides of the spectrum – just because he feels it’s good to mix it up every now and again.

“Usually [I switch] when I get a little tired of corporate life and I want to exercise my creative energies and be my own boss every four or five years,” he says. “And then after a while I decide it’d be nice to be part of a big team again, live in a big city again.”

See: The digital nomad: lonely, white, male?
For him, the incentive to strike out on his own is usually the sense that he’s capable of doing more than the corporate environment will accommodate. The independent life isn’t always easy (particularly on the dating front, he points out) – sometimes it’s hard to find the right partners to help you with your product, and you have to keep yourself focused. But Yongfook believes in paying attention to your data, which can show you where you’re going wrong.

Myers agrees it’s important to have people around you on whom you can bounce ideas. “If you’re locked in your house or your office all day, you’re never going to meet new people or unlock new opportunities,” he says. He likes to have a routine for his work that keeps him focused, and his workspace is set up so he can move around easily and welcome clients and collaborators. Plus, he works with communities to be able to stay current and network.

The digital nomad lifestyle might not be for everyone, but it’s never been easier to get into it. Besides plenty of online and offline communities for freelancers and entrepreneurs, there is a whole infrastructure of co-working spaces and platforms like Freelancer, Upwork, Raket.ph, Applancer, and many more, where professionals can offfer their services.

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SOSV announces new programme in Taipei for APAC startups aiming to develop mobile platforms

MOX, the mobile software accelerator backed by SOSV, is a two-month mobile-only development programme designed for startups to localise, test and fine-tune platforms, services and apps focussing on mobile users.

Why mobile? Because the market is huge. Internet analytics company ComScore published a report on mobile usage and user behaviour this year, concluding that digital media consumption on mobile devices has overtaken desktop as the most used platform in the US.

Meanwhile, mobile phone ownership is increasing in developing countries, with people logging on through mobiles in lieu of computers.

Startups that are accepted into the programme receive US$500,000 in advertising promotion with help to further monetise. The accelerator will take 6 per cent equity from each startup.

Following the model of the other five accelerators under SOSV, MOX will provide startups with mentorship and access to investors.

MOX will be based at Taipei’s popular hub, Taiwan Startup Stadium. The programme for Batch 1 starts January 4, with its first demo day scheduled on March 3.

Also Read: William Bao Bean of SOSV steams up the startup scene 

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