Haptik

Haptik is an Indian enterprise conversational AI platform founded in August 2013,[1][2] and acquired by Reliance Industries Limited in 2019.[3] The company develops technology to enable enterprises to build conversational AI systems that allow users to converse with applications and electronic devices in free-format, natural language, using speech or text.[4][5] The company has been accorded numerous accolades including the Frost & Sullivan Award, NASSCOM's Al Game Changer Award,[6] and serves Fortune 500 brands globally in industries such as financial, insurance, healthcare, technology and communications.[7][8]

Haptik
Type of businessPrivately held company
Type of site
Enterprise software
Available inEnglish
FoundedAugust 2013 (2013-08)
Headquarters
Mumbai
,
India
Area servedUnited States, India, Middle East, South East Asia, Europe, and Australia
OwnerJio Platforms (2019-present)
Key people
Employees196
URLhaptik.ai
RegistrationYes
Current statusActive
Haptik
Developer(s)Jio Platforms
Initial release2013
PlatformiOS, Android, Web browser
Available inEnglish
TypeIntelligent personal assistant, Chatbot

History

Haptik was founded by Aakrit Vaish[9] and Swapan Rajdev, both University of Illinois engineering alumni in August 2013.[10][11]

In March 2014, the company launched its first product, the Haptik app which is a chat-based personal assistant for Android and iOS platforms in India.[12][13]

Over time this evolved into full-blown conversational commerce app[14] with over 2 million downloads with 15 million app installs.[15] The company launched Life Insurance chat-bot for HDFC Life[16] and a Baap Bot for Father's Day.[17]

In August 2015, Dan Roth from the University of Illinois joined Haptik's board of advisers to make the platform's underlying NLP technology layer smarter.[18] In the same year, Haptik became the official personal assistant of the Mumbai City FC.[19] and also provided a customer support chat-bot to Swipe Telecom.[20]

By May 2016, the company was growing at 20 percent month-on-month in chat volume, downloads and user addition put together.[21] From a technology perspective, 25 percent of responses were already automated on the platform.[22]

By November 2017, the company had launched a full-scale enterprise level bot management platform including an analytics dashboard.[5]

In 2019, Haptik launched a new voice bot for KFC India allowing customers to place orders at KFC using Alexa. It also helps users find the nearest KFC restaurant and provides product availability on a real-time basis.[23]

In March 2019, the Government of Maharashtra signed a partnership pact with Haptik to develop a chatbot for its Aaple Sarkar platform. The bot provides conversational access to information regarding 1,400 services managed by the state government.[24][25]

In April 2019, Reliance Jio bought an 87% stake in the company in a $100 million deal.[26][27] This was followed by the acquisition of Mumbai-based start-up, Buzzo.ai, that develops customizable Artificial Intelligence software for e-commerce.[28][29]

In July 2019, Haptik acquired a Los Angeles based startup, Convrg to expand in North America.[30]

In November 2019, the company appointed Saumil Shah as the vice president of Engineering.[31]

In December 2019, Haptik developed a chatbot for Tata Mutual Fund called 'Prof. Simply Simple' that replicates the content available on their site and resolve these routine, repetitive queries and free customer support team to solve complex queries.[32]

In March 2020, The Government of India launched a WhatsApp chatbot called MyGov Corona Helpdesk to create awareness about coronavirus. The bot was built by Haptik.[33][34][35]

Partnership and customer base

Haptik built the world’s largest WhatsApp chatbot for COVID-19.[36] This was the official helpline for the Government of India which was utilized by over 21 million users across the country.[35] The MyGov Corona Helpdesk was engineered to fight rumors, educate the masses and bring a sense of calm to the pandemic situation. Haptik built the Helpdesk ground-up using official data shared by the Government.[33]

Kotak Life partnered with Haptik to develop an AI-driven conversational assistant called KAYA which provides 24X7 assistance to consumers.[37]

The company partnered with Amazon Pay,[38] HDFC Life,[39] Ola Cabs,[40] Uber,[41] Times Internet, Mumbai City FC,[18] Coca-Cola,[42] Ziman,[43] Zomato,[44] BookMyShow,[44][41] Cleartrip, Goibibo, UrbanClap, Via.com, Dineout, Flipkart, and Kotak Life to run campaigns on Haptik app.[45]

In March 2018, the company partnered with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to provide Al-enabled conversational solutions to customers in India.[46]

Haptik has entered into a strategic partnership with Y Combinator-backed Leena AI to provide enterprises for all types of bot solutions.[47]

Haptik's repertoire of chatbot customers in India includes Samsung,[2] Future Group,[48] KFC, Dream11, Sharekhan, Edelweiss, Tokio, Club Mahindra and IIFL among others.[49] Haptik has also built assistants for TOI,[50] Samsung, Ziman[43] and Akancha Against Harassment, an online Cyber Safety Initiative.[51]

Haptik is one of the world's largest conversational AI platforms.[48] In October 2017, The Times of India app incorporated Haptik's virtual personal assistant service with Sprite as the exclusive brand partner.[50] Samsung was the second partner who uses Haptik to power its ‘My Assistant’ service that is pre-installed on the Samsung Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge in India.[2]

Haptik built a scalable Support Bot for Dream11 which helped the online handle 8x their volume without a large support staff during IPL 2018.

Funding

In April, Times Internet acquired a majority stake in the company and invested $11.2 million into the business.[2]

Haptik raised $11.2M in its Series B funding round from Times Internet in April 2016.[52][53][2] Earlier, the company had received funding of $1 million from Kalaari Capital in September 2014.[54][55]

Haptik is a part of the Reliance Industries Limited, which acquired a majority stake in the company in a $100 million deal in April 2019.[56][57]

Software overview

Haptik builds Conversational AI that understands context.[58][59][60][61]

Others

Haptik has open sourced its proprietary Named Entity Recognition system that powers the chatbots behind Haptik app at the Chatbot Summit held in Berlin on June 26, 2017.[62][63]

See also

References
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