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Amazon has invested in Irish start-up Sweepr, which offers a solution to help customers resolve technical issues through voice assistants.
Dublin-founded start-up Sweepr has announced that the Amazon Alexa Fund joined its recently completed $9m Series A round as a strategic investor.
Launched in 2017, Sweepr is a contextually adaptive technical support platform for connected homes. The platform enables consumer service providers and connected product manufacturers to transform how they offer technical support, enabling customers to resolve issues without calling customer care.
Sweepr gathers detailed digital context in response to each consumer’s support request, and leverages this content to automatically and intelligently choose the best content to deliver specific, relevant, customised support.
This assistance is delivered through instructions, photographs and videos that are meant to be easy to understand and targeted to the technical skill of each user. The platform can be used to answer everyday questions such as, ‘Why won’t Netflix load?’
Tech support in the ‘moment of need’
The business was founded by Alan Coleman, who sold his last company Brite:Bill for nearly $90m in 2016. With support from the Amazon Alexa Fund, Sweepr will now have access to the latest developments in smart devices and voice technology, even more so since Amazon announced its recent alliance with Apple and Google.
Paul Bernard, director of the Alexa Fund, said: “Customers love using Alexa to control their connected devices and we want to continue to make the entire smart home experience even simpler and more convenient.
“Sweepr is enabling this type of convenience through its customer support services, and we’re excited to support their growth as a strategic investor.”
Sweepr founder and CEO Coleman added: “We believe that technical support needs to be available in the moment of need, rather than after waiting on hold for a care agent to answer the phone. Instantly available voice interfaces in the home, what we term voice-first care, is becoming a critical enabler of this experience as they become more ubiquitous.
“We are delighted to welcome the Alexa Fund as a Sweepr investor, which reinforces our confidence that we are on the right path towards transforming customer technical support to address the growing complexity of our connected home environments.”
