Freshworks acquired Artificial Intelligence powered Customer Service startup, AnswerIQ

Freshworks announced the acquisition of AnswerIQ Inc. The financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Founded in 2017, Seattle based AnswerIQ offers Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning services in customer support space. It classifies and auto responds to simple known issues. The service further helps support agents with top three recommended responses to difficult questions. The company has raised a total of $5M in a single round of funding to date.

The AnsweriQ will be complementing the Freshworks AI engine, Freddy. It will help organizations to leverage their existing customer data to scale self-service experiences and automate the complex customer workflows.

As a part of this acquisition deal, the CEO of AnswerIQ Pradeep Rathinam will be joining the team as its Chief Customer Officer.

Executive Opinion

Former AnswerIQ CEO and Freshworks Chief Customer Officer, Pradeep Rathinam, said, "Unlike clunky, siloed, legacy SaaS solutions, Freshworks is innovating to deliver a powerful and seamless experience across sales, marketing, customer success, and support functions. With Freshworks’ commitment to deploying enterprise-scale AI to better understand customers and build relationships for life, this acquisition is a natural fit. I’m excited to join Freshworks as their new chief customer officer as we create delightful experiences for enterprises that use our products worldwide."

Freshworks’ founder and CEO, Girish Mathrubootham, said, "The integration of AnsweriQ’s technology enhances our AI/ML capability in the customer engagement space and offers significant value to our customers. Pradeep brings executive-level acumen and expertise, which will be leveraged in his new role as chief customer officer as we double-down on our efforts to engage and keep customers for life."

Freshworks' AnswerIQ acquisition

Once Freshworks incorporates AnswerIQ tech in Freddy,  the system will extend its capabilities from acknowledging base dependent AI engine to learn from ticket conversations on the fly.

According to the announcement, Freddy will able to anticipate customer needs in advance. It will further make recommendations for agents based on the conversations, and perform tasks that include the cancellations and refunds.
This is the Freshworks second acquisition in less than a year. In the month of September last year, Freshworks acquired the Bangalore based CanvasFlip in an undisclosed amount.

Freshworks also recently secured $150 million in the funding round, thus securing its valuation to $3.5 billion.

Freshworks now has more than 2700 employees working out of its 13 offices across the globe.