Visitors take photos in front of the Meta (Facebook) sign at its headquarters in Menlo Park, California, on December 29, 2022.
Tayfun Coskun | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
Meta spins out customer service startup Kustomer amid ‘year of efficiency’
Kustomer’s original investors, which include Battery Ventures, Boldstart Ventures and Redpoint Ventures, have invested an additional $60 million into the startup, which now has a reported valuation of $250 million.
When Meta announced its acquisition of Kustomer in November 2020, the social networking giant pitched the startup’s customer relationship management technology as a useful tool to help Meta’s advertisers better manage their customer interactions on Meta-owned products like WhatsApp and Messenger.
Meta said at the time that it would “support Kustomer’s operations by providing the resources it needs to scale its business, improve and innovate its product offering and delight its customers.”
Since the acquisition, however, Meta has had a challenging time operating in a troubled online advertising market. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has described 2023 as the company’s “year of efficiency” and plans to lay off roughly 21,000 workers by early summer.
Meta’s layoffs to date have affected the company’s ability to provide quality customer service to companies, influencers and certain Facebook group administrators, several sources told CNBC earlier this year.
“Our journey with Meta has been amazing, and we are proud of the work we accomplished together to transform how businesses support their customers,” Kustomer CEO Brad Birnbaum
said in a statement. “Our partnership has resulted in expanding our international offerings, broadening our capabilities with artificial intelligence and deepening our integration with Meta’s modern communication channels, [like] Instagram, WhatsApp [and] Messenger.”
