Reliance buys artificial intelligence-based chatbot firm Haptik in Rs 700 crore deal

Mukesh Ambani-promoted Reliance Jio Digital Services has acquired 87% stake in artificial intelligence (AI) start-up Haptik for a consideration of Rs 230 crore.

The transaction size, including investment for growth and expansion, is estimated at about Rs 700 crore, including Rs 230 crore as the consideration for the initial business transfer for AI-based chatbot firm Haptik, the company said in a statement on Wednesday.

On a fully diluted basis, Reliance Jio Digital will hold around 87% of the business, with rest being held by Haptik founders and employees through stock option grants. This transaction enables Reliance Jio to leverage Haptik's capabilities across various devices and touch-points in the consumer's journey. The investment focus is on enhancement and expansion of the platform, with an addressable market opportunity of over 1 billion users in India, the statement said.

In April 2016, Haptik had raised capital from Times Internet, which will exit the business as a part of this transaction.

The start-up's AI-based chatbot enables consumers to interact with virtual agents and organisations through text and voice. For enterprises, Haptik's solutions help in dealing with customer service and feedback, user engagement as well as lead generation.

The team at Haptik will continue to drive growth of the business, including the enterprise platform as well as digital consumer assistants. It will also give a boost to Haptik's existing enterprise-grade business, with the company continuing to build innovative AI solutions for corporates globally, the statement said.

Akash Ambani, director, Reliance Jio, said, "This strategic investment underlines our commitment to further boost the digital ecosystem and provide Indian users conversational AI-enabled devices with multi-lingual capabilities. We believe voice interactivity will be the primary mode of interaction for Digital India."

Aakrit Vaish and Swapan Rajdev had founded Haptik in 2013, as a chat-based virtual concierge mobile application. Over the last two years, the focus has been on technology enhancement and enterprise-grade solutions. It is one of the largest conversational AI platforms and has processed more than two billion interactions till date, with a marquee client list that includes Samsung, Coca-Cola, Future Retail, KFC, Tata Group, OYO Rooms, Mahindra Group, among others.

Aakrit Vaish, co-founder and CEO, Haptik, said, "We started with the idea that conversational interfaces will cause a paradigm shift in the way people get things done. Over the course, we have built various products across both consumer and enterprise businesses, with the backbone always being a full stack chat and voice-enabled AI technology platform. Now is the opportunity to serve the next billion users who come online."

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• Reliance Jio Digital will hold around 87% of the business
   
• The rest will be held by Haptik founders and employees