• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, November 30, 2020

Facebook is reportedly nearing a deal to acquire a platform specializing in customer service that will value the startup — Kustomer — at a little more than $1 billion.

Kustomer’s self-service platform enables customers to resolve easy questions, and allows agents to deliver convenient experiences that build loyalty, according to the company’s website.

The company touts its services as a “new type CRM for customer service that drives smarter data-driven processes so you resolve more conversations quickly.”

PitchBook, a software-as-a-service company that delivers data, research and technology covering the private capital markets, initially reported the deal.

CEO Brad Birnbaum, who founded Kustomer, previously worked at Airtime as the company’s CTO and also spent time at Salesforce, and AOL.

In October, Kustomer added Instagram Messaging integration to fuel customer service through social commerce.

Kustomer's integration with Facebook's Instagram will allow Kustomer to respond to direct messages, mentions, and Stories from the Kustomer platform, eliminating the need for toggling between tabs or devices.

It also gives users the ability to track key performance indicators, and view messaging on Instagram in one timeline, along with other customer interactions and conversations across multiple channels and platforms, as well as leverage intelligent routing, automation and artificial intelligence (AI) to keep up with demand.