Sequoia Capital invests $5.2 million in online consumer service and feedback platform, Akosha

Akosha, an online platform that connects consumers and brands for customer service and feedback, has raised a total funding of $5.2 million from Sequoia Capital (including a seed round that happened earlier).

The platform allows consumers to share their grievances and feedback, resulting in quick resolution of their problems. At the same time, brands are able to leverage a software suite to drive quick resolution while protecting their brand equity and goodwill by keeping customer complaints off social media. Akosha also offers customer service and feedback metrics to the brands which helps in benchmarking themselves against competitors.

Akosha was founded in 2010 by Ankur Singla, and supported by Avinash Vankadaru (operations) and Vishal Pal Chaudhary (technology). As of June 2014, the platform has received over 790,000 customer service issues across sectors including telecom, consumer appliances, mobile, insurance, banking and e-commerce. Over 100 large brands use Akosha’s online platform and over a dozen of them have become paying customers. Voltas, Aircel, Snapdeal, Micromax and Groupon are some of the leading brands currently using Akosha’s enterprise solutions.

Ankur said,

The funding will be used to make sizeable investments in technology and to expand its OneDirect Suite of enterprise solutions like customer service benchmarking, online feedback CRM, and reputation management solutions.

Shailendra Singh, Managing Director, Sequoia Capital said,

We first made a seed investment in Akosha several quarters ago, and we’re delighted to see the progress and evolution of the model. Consumer use of the online product has grown over 20x in the this time period with almost no marketing, and over 100 brands now use the Akosha platform every week, and over a dozen marquee brands have converted to paying customers. Akosha is creating a new business model, where consumers can use Akosha to connect with all brands using a single platform in a private and mutually beneficial manner. We’re delighted to be backing Ankur to create a pioneering business model and company.

Ankur added,“Large enterprises in India have shown great interest and appreciation for our robust technology and platform, and our ability to benchmark their product and customer service offering. The use of our online platform by consumers has grown dramatically in the last two years. In fact, the number of customer service issues being filed on our website have increased by 3x during the last 1 year.”

Ankur belives that building a solid company takes 8-10+ years and this funding by Sequoia Capital is a step in the right direction for Akosha which will help them achieve our objectives faster.

Though these are still early days but entry of startups like Haptik shows the possible scope of the industry. In coming years, a lot of things will evolve in this space.