{"id":3778,"date":"2017-02-28T17:02:58","date_gmt":"2017-02-28T17:02:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rsoftsolution.com\/blog\/pypestream-raises-15m-for-its-customer-messaging-platform.html"},"modified":"2017-02-28T17:02:58","modified_gmt":"2017-02-28T17:02:58","slug":"pypestream-raises-15m-for-its-customer-messaging-platform","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rbsitsoftwaresolution.in\/blog\/pypestream-raises-15m-for-its-customer-messaging-platform.html","title":{"rendered":"Pypestream raises $15M for its customer messaging platform"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

Pypestream<\/a> is announcing that it has raised $15 million in Series A funding.<\/p>\n

When the startup launched more than a year ago<\/a>, founder and CEO Richard Smullen was pitching text messaging as the best way for customers to communicate with businesses \u2014 specifically, through the Pypestream app, where businesses can\u00a0create their own accounts with a variety of different \u201cpypes\u201d to handle different types of communication.<\/p>\n

Since then, Pypestream has expanded to offer messaging capabilities in businesses\u2019 own apps and elsewhere. This goes beyond just sending text and images \u2014 users can also make payments, schedule appointments and send files directly from the messaging window.<\/p>\n

Of course, we\u2019ve recently\u00a0seen tremendous hype<\/a> around chatbots, particularly on Facebook, but Smullen argued that we won\u2019t all start interacting with Facebook chatbots anytime soon.<\/p>\n

\u201cBrands thought, or agencies think, that people actually want to have general conversations with businesses and brands that aren\u2019t specific to utility or aren\u2019t specific to a need,\u201d Smullen said. \u201cJust as a consumer, I don\u2019t need to have a general conversation with Nike \u2014 but if my sneakers are broken, then my conversation with Nike is very necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why Pypestream has focused on using artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the types of things that businesses and brands were already offering through call centers and other customer service channels. AI and machine\u00a0learning are terms that get thrown around a lot \u2014 Smullen acknowledged that Pypestream didn\u2019t need \u201cto go all the way down the road of deep learning like Watson or Cortana,\u201d but he said the system is smart enough to handle\u00a0most tasks without human involvement.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe try to automate as much of the repetitive inbound queries as possible,\u201d Smullen said. \u201cIn most of the cases, it\u2019s 100 percent automated resolution \u2026 Oftentimes, where the machine can\u2019t bring it to the final resolution, we push the conversation to a human and the human will complete the resolution. Our automation system learns what the human did, so the next time it can do it without the human.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pypestream customers include Insurance Thought Leadership, Lynx Services and Discovery Health. Smullen said the company has also won contracts with the federal government, though it hasn\u2019t announced the deals yet.<\/p>\n

The company previously raised $2 million in seed funding<\/a>. The Series A was led by Rick Braddock, former CEO of Priceline and former COO of Citibank, with participation from The Chatterjee Group and what Pypestream says is \u201ca large, well-known global hedge fund.\u201d Braddock will also serve as Pypestream\u2019s executive chairman.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Article source: http:\/\/feedproxy.google.com\/~r\/techcrunchIt\/~3\/86Opbbs3TOM\/<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pypestream is announcing that it has raised $15 million in Series A funding. When the startup launched more than a year ago, founder and CEO Richard Smullen was pitching text <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[19],"tags":[25],"class_list":["post-3778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-enterprise-software","tag-enterprise"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t