Conversable, an Austin-based conversational AI marketing startup, was acquired by New York City-based LivePerson (NASDAQ: LPSN).
Terms of the deal weren't disclosed.
LivePerson, which was founded in 1995 and is perhaps best known for its LiveEngage platform, said the acquisition will add a variety of new tools to add to its marketing and campaign capabilities, including structured and unstructured conversations, social listening and consumer engagement.
"Conversational commerce is about using AI and natural language -- a conversation -- to interact with a brand," said Robert LoCascio, who founded LivePerson and has been its only CEO. "Consumers do not want to download more apps or navigate websites to order ahead. They want to type, tap or voice order what they want from the messaging services they already enjoy."
The deal marks another strong exit for Conversable founders Ben Lamm and Andrew Busey, who previously were on the founding teams of Chaotic Moon and Team Chaos -- among other ventures. Lamm has since gone on to found Hypergiant.
Lamm and Busey founded Conversable in 2015. Within a year or so, they landed big name customers including Wingstop, Pizza Hut, Whole Foods, TGI Friday's and others. In 2017, the company launched its business intelligence platform, AQUA, which helps customer care teams improve responses to consumers across text, Twitter, Facebook Messenger and more, without requiring work by skilled programmers.
Conversable launched with about $2 million in seed funding from Austin's Silverton Partners and a few angel investors, but it has not otherwise reported additional venture funding.
Lamm said in a news release that he's excited for the companies to join forces.
"Conversation is a transformative interface and an unprecedented opportunity," he said. "Businesses that get started early will have the most important advantage in the AI era: high-fidelity data to train machine learning models."
