Leading cryptocurrency exchange platform Coinbase revealed the acquisition of Agara, a support platform provider specializing in machine learning and artificial intelligence.
According to a recent report by Cointelegraph, Coinbase will be using this acquisition to improve its own customer service quality by utilizing Agara’s natural language processing and machine learning tools for automation purposes. Although official details of this deal have not been made public yet, anonymous sources with TechCrunch say the acquisition price will be between $40 and $50 million.
Agara was co-founded by Coinbase’s head of operations in India, Pankaj Gupta, and sees this unification as a major success for both companies from an operational and customer standpoint. As part of this acquisition, Coinbase will absorb the entirety of Agara’s tech team.
Commenting on the announcement, “It’s amazing to see my worlds collide here with Agara, a startup I co-founded in early 2017 but later left to join Google (News - Alert),” said Gupta.
This acquisition could mark a turning point for Coinbase, which has recently been criticized by users for lacking quality customer support over the phone. Agara CEO Abhimanyu claims that the company’s tech stack is being incorporated into phone activity to address this issue, stating “Some of the more complicated things we do are around phone calls. We have been working to automate much of, if not all, of the support that happens through phone calls,”
Seeing that cryptocurrency popularity is rising at an exponential rate, Coinbase could use this opportunity to make early corrections in service by adding intelligent, machine driven support for valued customers across the globe.