Reply.ai

Reply.ai, established in 2016, specialized in providing a platform for building enterprise-level chatbots. The company was founded by Omar Pera Mira, Pablo Pera Mira, Erica Mannherz, and Clara De Soto. The founding team brought together diverse experiences; brothers Omar and Pablo Pera previously co-founded Perops, a mobile app studio that garnered over 50 million downloads. Omar had a background as a distributed systems engineer at CERN and Tech Lead at Pixable, while Pablo worked as an engineer for Google and Head of Mobile for Pixable. Erica Mannherz and Clara De Soto had previously co-founded ClearHart, a wearable tech company that was acquired in 2015.

The firm's core business was a no-code platform that enabled companies to create and deploy customized chatbots for customer service. These bots utilized artificial intelligence and machine learning to handle customer inquiries, with the goal of improving agent efficiency and scaling customer service operations. The platform was designed to integrate with various messaging channels like Facebook, Kik, Telegram, and SMS. Reply.ai's business model centered on providing these AI-driven self-service and deflection tools to a client base that included major brands such as Coca-Cola, Samsung, and Starbucks. The technology was capable of successfully deflecting up to 40% of initial customer communications, which significantly reduced the need for live agent interaction.

In a significant milestone, Kustomer, an omnichannel SaaS CRM platform, acquired Reply.ai on May 14, 2020. The acquisition was a strategic move for Kustomer to enhance its AI capabilities, particularly its Kustomer IQ engine, by integrating Reply.ai's chatbot and automation technology. This allowed Kustomer to offer more advanced self-service tools and intelligent assistance. Following the acquisition, the Reply.ai team, including co-founders Omar and Pablo Pera, joined Kustomer to continue developing the technology within the larger CRM platform. The acquisition was Kustomer's first and was seen as a key step in bolstering its machine learning capabilities for the entire customer journey.

Keywords: customer service automation, chatbot platform, AI chatbots, machine learning, customer service deflection, no-code chatbot builder, enterprise chatbots, customer communication, messaging platform integration, virtual assistants, Kustomer acquisition, Omar Pera, Pablo Pera, Erica Mannherz, Clara De Soto, customer service AI, self-service tools, agent efficiency, automated customer support, conversational AI