Sources told TechCrunch that Microsoft has bought Parature for a price tag of $100 million. Parature is a customer service SaaS provider. Its flagship product is the "Parature Customer Service Software" currently supports over 70 million end users around the world. The platform integrates a customer portal, a self-service knowledge base, help desk ticketing application and other business modules into a central and fully-customizable web-based system, according to information found on the company's website.
TechCrunch reported that the acquisition will provide the CRM platform of Microsoft, Microsoft Dynamics, a world-class knowledge base that will allow it to connect with their customers through different channels. Parature was established in 2000 in a Cornell University dorm room when Co-Founder Duke Chung and his classmates built Cyracle, a chat application for online help. Three years later, they changed the name of their company to Parature, a blend of "Paradigm of the Future" and transferred their headquarters to Reston, Virginia.
Parature is backed by Valhalla Partners, Sierra Ventures and Accel Partners. The private equity firms gave a total of $30.2 million to Parature which has grown from having only 35 million users in 2011 to 70 million today.
TechCrunch reported that the purchase serves to fill a gap for Microsoft which does not yet have a customer service fitting the modern client who seeks to find solutions to their own problems instead of calling a toll-free customer service number. According to Microsoft Dynamics CRM Senior Director Strategy and Planning Bill Patterson, Parature will help Microsoft widen its capability and better compete against market leader Salesforce.com.
In a Skype interview, Constellation Research Founder Ray Wang told TechCrunch that the knowledge base is what makes Parature different from the rest. The company's knowledge base has been re-architected so that it is the most modern one in the market, integrating context, search, prediction and learning, Wang said.
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