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Ducky Raises $2.7M in Pre-Seed Funding, Puts AI to Work for Customer Support Teams

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Ducky's Machine Learning Technology Surfaces Answers, Unlocking Support Agents' Problem-Solving Superpowers

NASHVILLE, Tenn., May 28, 2024-- Ducky, an AI-powered support platform unlocking customer support agents' problem-solving superpowers, today announced it raised a $2.7M round of pre-seed funding led by Penny Jar Capital, with participation from Bread & Butter Ventures, NOMO Ventures, Wilson Sonsini, angel investors and others. Ducky uses machine learning and AI to make internal knowledge sources instantly accessible for customer-facing teams by automatically delivering relevant information and an on-brand customer response. By increasing productivity, customer-focused teams have more time to problem-solve the most challenging cases with care. Coming out of stealth, Ducky's initial clients include customer-focused companies like Superhuman and others.

"There is a rush to use AI to deflect customers and prevent human interaction – we believe AI is more powerful when supporting humans, not replacing them," said James O'Brien, co-founder and COO of Ducky. "By removing the blocker of finding the right information and handling repetitive questions, agents can focus on the aspects of their work that create impactful, lasting customer relationships."

"The information support agents need to do their jobs is buried in a myriad of distinct places, and the effort to search and discover is an emotionally draining, time-sucking experience – not an ideal environment for the team who is a gateway to your customers," said Hongbo Tian, co-founder and CEO, Ducky. "We believe the best way to create an incredible experience for customers is to put AI and machine learning to work for – and learn from – the incredible support agents on the frontlines."

By combining open-source and proprietary technology, Ducky's AI-powered support platform learns from internal knowledge tools like Slack, Notion, and JIRA, to help support agents respond to tickets faster and find the correct information in seconds. In addition, Ducky automatically creates a customer response based on a brand's tone – ensuring personalized, consistent communication for every interaction. With its Chrome extension, Ducky works alongside any support ticketing platform, including Help Scout, Zendesk, Hubspot, Gorgias, and more.

"Knowledge workers spend about one day a week searching for data – this is disastrous when the customer experience hangs in the balance," said Rich Scudellari, co-founder of Penny Jar Capital. "The Ducky team is solving this data problem with machine learning and AI, freeing up time for support teams to create personalized customer experiences with lasting impact."

"This is an insanely talented team – Hongbo's mastery of AI and machine learning, combined with James' proven track record in business development and scaling SaaS companies, makes them a powerhouse. We're proud to back the Ducky team in building next-generation tech for customer support," said Mary Grove, Managing Partner, Bread and Butter Ventures.

About Ducky

Ducky's AI-powered support platform unlocks customer support agents' problem-solving superpowers. Founded by Hongbo Tian and James O'Brien, Ducky's mission is to create amazing, human customer experiences. Ducky's combination of proprietary and open-sourced machine learning and AI technology makes internal knowledge sources instantly accessible and actionable, allowing support agents to focus on problem-solving the most challenging cases.

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