India’s ‘WhatsApp for mobile customer support’ Haptik bags $1M

India’s messenger app for consumer support Haptik just raised US$1 million in its first round of funding from Kalaari Capital. This mobile app lets users get instant help for products and services using a WhatsApp-like messaging channel.

With this round, Bangalore-headquartered venture firm Kalaari Capital comes on board as Haptik’s first investor partner. The Kalaari portfolio includes Indian ecommerce leaders Snapdeal, Myntra, and Urban Ladder. Haptik will use the investment to scale up, build its operations center, and develop new product features.

Rajesh Raju, managing director at Kalaari Capital, says in a statement: “Messaging is one of the fastest growing communication channels in history, given its convenient asynchronous nature. Combine that with the fact that the current means of getting help via phone and online are cumbersome and often frustrating, we believe the Haptik messaging concierge solution could revolutionize the way we look at customer service. The service could eventually evolve into a full blown mobile personal assistant across products, services, and geographies.”

Founded in August 2013 by two friends Aakrit Vaish and Swapan Radjev, Haptik currently has an in-house team which will get back to any query regarding 180 companies across 12 categories, including electronics, banking, and ecommerce, within four minutes. The app launched in India in April processes over 200,000 messages each month.

Haptik claims that it is “the only messenger app in the world that enables users to complete actions through Android Wear smart watches.”

Instant messaging apps have been a hit with Indian users ever since smartphones reached India. WhatsApp is the most popular messaging app here with over 60 million active users a month. Homegrown messenger Hike is growing rapidly, crossing 35 million registered users. It recently raised funding of US$65 million from Tiger Global Management and Bharti SoftBank (BSB), a joint venture of Bharti Enterprises and Japan’s Softbank Corporation.

See: Hike gets fresh $65M funding to take on WhatsApp in India