Freshworks Acquires Chatbot Startup Joe Hukum

Freshworks, a provider of cloud-based business software, has acquired tech startup Joe Hukum, providers of a platform that enables businesses to build their own chatbots based on logical workflows. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

This acquisition marks Freshworks' eighth in less than two years. Freshworks, which had previously been named Freshdesk, acquired Chatimity and Frilp, key acquisitions that are enhancing natural language-based artificial intelligence capabilities. Others included Airwoot, Framebench, and Kontor. Joe Hukum’s decision tree-based frameworks complete key capabilities to launch chatbot-powered solutions.

Joe Hukum was founded in July 2015. Its technology is powered by a robust decision tree framework that automates sales, service, and support workflows across channels and user interfaces. The Joe Hukum team will be responsible for building bots on top of existing Freshworks products, enabling workflow automations for demand generation, knowledge management, and dynamic in-app self-service.

"We are seeing strong interest from our customers on how they want to leverage chatbots as they are looking for new ways to engage with customers on their web and mobile channels," said Girish Mathrubootham, founder and CEO of Freshworks, in a statement. "As customer preferences shift from traditional phone tree-based call center support, chatbots offer a new support experience while essentially solving the age-old challenge of triaging customer inquiries and routing that to the right support agent. These are still early days for chatbots, but Joe Hukum's innovative team and technology will help our clients better engage and support their customers."

"Consumer behavior is drastically changing, perhaps faster than technology can keep up. Having helped build a successful e-commerce company in India, I realized customers are constantly looking for simpler ways to engage with businesses and chatbots offered a simple, yet powerful way to address this need," said Arihant Jain, co-founder of Joe Hukum, in a statement. "As a founder, I could not have asked for a better outcome for Joe Hukum. Being a part of Freshworks is super-exciting for all of us as it gives us a platform that provides us scale and reach and impact for hundreds of thousands of customers."

---

Related Articles

Freshworks Adds Intelligent Workflows to Freshsales CRM

The enhancement allows sales teams to automate rote business processes.