Frilp

Frilp, an abbreviation of "Friends Help," was a technology startup based in Chennai, India, operating as a social recommendation platform for local businesses and services. The company was founded in 2013 by a team of five entrepreneurs: Shyam Anandaraman, Senthil Kanthaswamy, Raja Jayaraman, Anish Deenadayalan, and Aravind Gopalan. The idea originated from Anandaraman's personal challenges in finding reliable local services after returning to Chennai from his role as an analyst at Goldman Sachs. This experience highlighted a market need for a platform that prioritized trusted recommendations over anonymous reviews.

Frilp's core service was a web and mobile-based platform that allowed users to discover trusted local services through recommendations from their social circles and like-minded individuals. It leveraged a proprietary algorithm and built upon Facebook's social graph and Google Maps to connect users with the most relevant people in their network who could provide a recommendation for a specific need. This model aimed to digitize and amplify word-of-mouth referrals, helping users make decisions for services ranging from home maintenance to healthcare. If a user's immediate circle couldn't provide an answer, the query would be routed to identified experts on the platform. The business was positioned as a competitor to local search and review platforms.

The company's journey included several key milestones. It was incubated at IIM Ahmedabad's iAccelerator program in 2013 and was recognized by the Kauffman Foundation as a top 50 high-potential early-stage startup. Frilp secured approximately $618,000 in funding over three rounds from angel investors and institutions, including Freshdesk's CEO Girish Mathrubootham, CIIE, and Microsoft Accelerator. After growing its user base to over 100,000, Frilp was acquired by Freshdesk (now Freshworks) in October 2015 for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition was driven by Freshdesk's interest in integrating Frilp's peer-to-peer recommendation technology and expertise in machine learning and natural language processing to enhance its customer support offerings by building smart customer communities. Following the acquisition, the Frilp team joined Freshdesk, and the standalone Frilp application was discontinued.

Keywords: social recommendation, local services, peer-to-peer recommendations, Chennai startup, Frilp, Turing Research Labs, Freshdesk acquisition, recommendation engine, online discovery platform, social search, word-of-mouth marketing, customer communities, natural language processing, Shyam Anandaraman, Senthil Kanthaswamy, iAccelerator, Microsoft Accelerator, local business reviews, trusted contacts, consumer services platform