[Industry Update] Akosha Has Raised $5.2 Million From Sequoia Capital

Akosha, India’s biggest online consumer service and feedback platform, today announced that it has received a total funding of $5.2 million from Sequoia Capital including a seed round that happened earlier. 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.

Akosha is the largest online platform in India that connects consumers and brands for customer service and feedback. While consumers gain access to a platform that allows them to share their grievances and feedback, resulting in quick resolution of their problems, 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. In addition, many brands use customer service and feedback metrics offered by Akosha to set a benchmark for themselves against competitors.

Akosha was founded in 2010 by Ankur Singla, who was joined by Avinash Vankadaru (in operations) and Vishal Pal Chaudhary (in technology). As of June 2014, Akosha 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.

“It is fantastic to see so many people come back to thank us after we have helped them resolve their customer service issues. 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, and we believe that this is just the beginning” said Ankur Singla, Founder and CEO, Akosha.

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 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 been 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.”