Pypestream is an American software company that offers a self-service automation platform. The company was founded in 2015 by Richard Smullen, the co-founder of Genesis Media LLC, and is headquartered in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

Technology

The Pypestream platform drives an engagement interface called a Pype that uses

conversational AI A chatbot or chatterbot is a software application used to conduct an on-line chat conversation via text or text-to-speech, in lieu of providing direct contact with a live human agent. Designed to convincingly simulate the way a human would behav ...

within a

graphical user interface The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inst ...

. It gained popularity due to the high cost of assisted-service engagements versus the minuscule cost of self-service engagements, coupled with the brand-enhancing experience delivered by a Pype. It is used for

customer service Customer service is the assistance and advice provided by a company to those people who buy or use its products or services. Each industry requires different levels of customer service, but in the end, the idea of a well-performed service is that ...

, employee service, recruiting, patient service, traveler service, marketing, and other automated engagement use cases. Pypestream couples AI-driven

natural-language understanding Natural-language understanding (NLU) or natural-language interpretation (NLI) is a subtopic of natural-language processing in artificial intelligence that deals with machine reading comprehension. Natural-language understanding is considered an A ...

(NLU) with a widget-based GUI that encourages pointing, swiping and gestures.

History

In late December 2015, Pypestream's mobile application launched in beta. By April 2016, the company had 500 businesses signed up and using the messaging platform, including

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and Billboard. The same year, the company was named in the Red Herring list of 100 most exciting startups in North America and announced a partnership with Discovery Health, the largest medical scheme administrator in South Africa, in order to include the Pypestream technology in the app for members of Discovery Health Medical Scheme. In July 2016, Pypestream partnered with Insurance Thought Leadership to create a messaging platform specialized for insurance customer service. As of 2016, there were over 12,000 businesses using Pypestream since its launch in December 2015. In February, 2017, Pypestream raised $15 million in funding from Rick Braddock and The Chattergee Group. In 2018, Pypestream was named one of the four Hot Vendors in Conversational AI by Aragon Research. Its current clients include Allianz, EY,

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, Sling, Brown & Brown, and

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. The company has been granted five patents by the U.S. Patent Office and secured $15 million in funding by W.R. Berkley, bringing their total up to $35 million.

References

{{reflist, refs= {{cite web, url=https://techcrunch.com/2015/10/07/pypestream-seed-funding/, title=Pypestream Raises $2M To Help Businesses Talk To Their Customers, date=October 7, 2015, author=Anthony Ha, publisher=Tech Crunch, access-date=May 17, 2016 {{cite web, url=https://techcrunch.com/2015/11/11/pypestream-launch/, title=Pypestream Offers Consumers A New Way To Chat With Businesses, author=Anthony Ha, date=November 11, 2015, publisher=Tech Crunch, access-date=May 17, 2016 {{cite web, url=https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/12/technology/startup-pypestream/, title=Is this app the call center of the future?, author=Sara Ashley O'Brien, date=January 12, 2016, publisher=CNN, access-date=May 17, 2016 {{cite web, url=http://www.twice.com/rip-hold-times-pypestream-bringing-customer-service-digital-age/60224, title=RIP Hold Times: Pypestream Bringing Customer Service Into The Digital Age, date=January 25, 2016, author=Lisa Johnston, publisher=Twice, access-date=May 17, 2016 {{cite web, url=http://www.xconomy.com/new-york/2016/02/22/pypestreams-ceo-talks-messaging-between-businesses-and-consumers/2/, title=Pypestream's CEO Talks Messaging Between Businesses and Consumers, author=João-Pierre S. Ruth, date=February 22, 2016, publisher=Xconomy, access-date=May 17, 2016 {{cite web, url=http://www.finsmes.com/2015/10/pypestream-closes-2m-seed-funding.html, title=Pypestream Closes $2M Seed Funding, date=October 9, 2015, publisher=Finsmes, access-date=May 17, 2016 Software companies based in New York (state) 2015 establishments in New York City Software companies of the United States Software companies established in 2015 American companies established in 2015