27 May 2016, NEW DELHI: Bengaluru based personal assistance platform, HelpChat shuts down its chat operations. The company also laid off several employees (numbers not specific).
According to sources and reports by HT Media, co-founder of HelpChat, Ankur Singla said, “fter extensive debate internally, we took the call to phase out chat from our app and create the same level of experience using automation and simple user interfaces. The rest of the app remains the same—but it is simplified, fast and without any delays”.
“I’m working with our HR team on this and we have already roped in 12 start-ups and big companies for out-placing them into the right job profiles”, he added.
HelpChat, formerly known as Akosha raised its last funding round of $16 million from its investor Sequoia Capital in May 2015.
HelpChat launched its chat service platform in the month of June 2015, however did not meet the company’s expectations as they failed to retain already existing customers which made the company to take a call on its strategy. Further, HelpChat acquired Niffler, a Mumbai-based mobile app which assists users in discovering deals and offers from brick and mortar stores and launched services like recharge, bill payment, cabs, among others over the last few months.
