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  • Assistly Scores $3 Million More For Fast Growing SaaS Customer Service Product

    Michael Arrington

    J. Michael Arrington (born March 13, 1970 in Huntington Beach, California) is a serial entrepreneur and the founder of TechCrunch, a blog covering startups and technology news. Arrington attended Claremont McKenna College (BA Economics, 1992) and Stanford Law School (JD, 1995) and practiced as a corporate and securities lawyer at two law firms: O’Melveny & Myers and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich... → Learn More

    Tuesday, January 4th, 2011

    Assistly, a software as a service startup that helps companies deal with customer service, formally launched just a little over three months ago. They got to that point on a $1.7 million venture round raised in early 2010. Now they’ve raised another $3 million.

    Investors in this round include Bullpen Capital, Index Ventures and Kenny Van Zant, as well as existing investors True Ventures and Social Leverage.

    Companies use Assistly to help them deal with customers who may be leaving comments on social networks as well as more traditional customer service paths like email, calls, etc. Part of the reason they’re using it is the way Assistly charges. They have regular per seat charging like everyone else. But they’ve also realized that customer service doesn’t usually just involve dedicated customer service staff. Other people in the organization, from the CEO on down, sometimes want or need to be involved, too. Assistly offers companies an option of paying for total usage instead of seats, so people can jump in occasionally and only be billed for time spent on the platform.

    The company has hundreds of live paying customers, they say. These customers include Twitter, Vimeo, Discuss, StockTwits, Fitbit, Rdio, Grooveshark, DirecTV and CompuPay.

    Company: Desk
    Website: desk.com
    Launch Date: 2009
    Funding: $5.7M

    Desk.com makes it easy for teams and Whole Companies to support customers right from the browser, via email, phone, chat, web, Facebook and Twitter. The company provides hosted, cloud-based customer service platforms for delivering what the company calls “awesomely responsive” customer service. The company’s all-in-one system helps businesses of all sizes listen to and support customers in real time via email, self service FAQs, chat, and social networks like Twitter. Founded in 2009 by customer service automation veterans Alex Bard, Gary...

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