Palo Alto – December, 2022 – Woodside Capital Partners acted as the exclusive financial advisor to Helpshift on their acquisition by Keywords Studios, an international technical service provider to the global video game industry. Helpshift is a conversational customer service platform that leverages AI, bots, and messaging-based communication and is used to deliver help experience to many of the world’s top mobile apps and mobile games, including Activision Blizzard, Electronic Arts, Microsoft, Netflix, Square, Supercell, Tencent and Virgin Mobile. The deal, valued at $75 million, is expected to bring together each organization’s complementary expertise, allowing them to provide better experiences to game companies and gamers alike.
Helpshift will be integrated with Keywords’ Player Support business and will build on the long-standing existing partnership which has seen the two groups work together effectively for the benefit of many clients. This will further be enhanced by Keywords’ Kantan AI studio, which utilizes a highly advanced machine translation tool and will expand the number of languages supported in-app by Helpshift’s platform and facilitate more efficient multilingual player support to the benefit of clients.
By combining these capabilities with Helpshift, Keywords will create a market leading customer support platform. It will leverage Helpshift’s technology for an efficient consumer experience whilst enabling a team of 2,000 experienced player support agents to provide higher value interactions, and together, creates an unrivalled offering for customers.
Eric Vermillion, CEO of Helpshift, commented:
“Helpshift is thrilled to join Keywords, and we believe that by becoming part of the Group we will drive the long-term growth of our platform and create tremendous value for our customers. We are excited to be able to combine with KantanAI and Player Support to provide a holistic, modern support journey fusing conversational AI, automation, translation, agent support, and more. Together, we will be able to cover the full spectrum of support needs and service levels, applying Helpshift’s technology for efficiency and the seamless experience consumers want, and leveraging Keywords’ agents to provide higher value-add interactions. We are looking forward to paving the road for the future of support with the wider Keywords group.”
Bertrand Bodson, CEO of Keywords Studios commented:
“We are excited to welcome the talented Helpshift team to Keywords after partnering with them for a number of years. We have seen first-hand the power of their technology and its ability to improve player engagement and retention. We believe being able to deliver a holistic player experience solution will be a compelling offering for our clients and further support our strategic partnership ambitions with them. We are really looking forward to working with the team and supporting their growth as we continue to deliver against our long-term strategy for the Group.”
Jon Shalowitz, Managing Director of Woodside Capital Partners, commented:
“The bar has risen for customer engagement experiences across all B2C and B2B applications. We are seeing ever-increasing demand in the market for innovative companies that leverage AI to determine customer intent and to provide contextual, in-the-moment engagement experiences. Helpshift is a pioneer in this space, and we are proud to have represented them to find and close this fantastic exit with Keywords.”
About Helpshift
Helpshift is an in-app customer engagement and web-based customer support platform that enables mobile apps to improve customer experience, drive higher ratings, reduce churn and increase retention. By reducing the number of incoming support requests with an in-app knowledge base and leveraging in-depth user and device data to proactively engage mobile customers with targeted push notifications & in-app surveys, Helpshift’s customer care suite has proven to improve agent resolution times and increase user satisfaction with their in-app experience.
Helpshift is headquartered in San Francisco and backed by True Ventures, Microsoft, Salesforce, and Nexus Venture Partners.
About Keywords
Keywords Studios is an international technical and creative services provider to the global video games industry and beyond. We help our customers imagine more for their IP’s, bringing to life digital content that entertains, connects, challenges and educates people worldwide. Established in 1998, we are a team of over 12,000 based across more than 70 facilities in 26 countries, strategically located in Asia, the Americas, Australia and Europe. We provide integrated art creation, marketing services, game development, testing, localization, audio, community management and player support in more than 50 languages and 16 games platforms to a client base of over than 950 clients across the globe.
Woodside Capital Partners is one of the leading corporate finance advisory firms for tech companies in M&A and financings in the $30M-$500M segment. The firm has worked with some of the best entrepreneurs and investors since 2001, providing ultra-personalized service. Our team has global vision and reach, and has completed hundreds of successful engagements. We have deep industry knowledge and extensive domain experience in the following sectors: Autonomous Vehicles and ADAS, Computer Vision, Artificial Intelligence, CloudTech, Enterprise Software, Information Security, Digital Entertainment & Lifestyle, Health Tech, Internet of Things, Networking / Infrastructure, Robotics, Semiconductors, Batteries, and Energy Storage. Woodside Capital Partners is a specialist in cross-border transactions, with extensive relationships among venture capitalists, private equity investors, and corporate executives from global 1000 companies. More about Woodside Capital Partners here.
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