san francisco california key people mikkel svane alexander aghassipour morten primdahl revenue 127 million 2014 1 employees 1 400 website www.zendesk.com launched 2007 2007 zendesk inc. is a danish customer service software company based in san francisco california . zendesk provides a cloud based customer support platform which allows quicker and easier interaction between businesses and customers . 2 zendesk has offices worldwide in london madison taguig manila copenhagen dublin tokyo montpellier berlin melbourne singapore and sao paulo . 3 it is listed on the new york stock exchange with the symbol zen and is a constituent of the russell 2000 index . 4 founded in 2007 the company now has over 1 400 employees and serves 75 000 paid customers in 150 countries and territories . 5 contents 1 history 2 products and technology 2.1 zendesk 2.2 help center 2.3 embeddables 2.4 satisfaction prediction 2.5 voice 2.6 zopim 2.7 bime 2.8 relate 3 accolades 4 philanthropy 4.1 zendesk neighbor foundation 4.2 link sf copenhelp and link dane 5 references history edit zendesk was founded in 2007 by mikkel svane morten primdahl and alexander aghassipour . the company was started in a loft located in copenhagen denmark . 6 the three men were working in customer service solutions and found several problems with customer tracking and incident reporting software . this prompted them to create an alternative that would be simple and intuitive to use . 7 in june 2008 zendesk received 500 000 in seed funding from angel investor christoph janz . 8 in 2009 following a 6 million series b funding from charles river ventures and benchmark capital 9 the company moved to san francisco to establish its headquarters . in april 2014 zendesk acquired zopim technologies pte ltd a singapore based provider of live chat software . 10 zendesk would eventually turn this software into zopim premium live chat . 11 in may 2014 zendesk became a publicly traded company debuting with an ipo price of 9 per share . 12 on october 13 2015 zendesk acquired we are cloud sas for 45.0 million . 13 we are cloud is the maker of bime analytics software the technology that zendesk now uses to power its customer data platform . 14 products and technology edit zendesk edit zendesk s primary product is a cloud based customer service and support ticketing platform giving companies the ability to handle customer calls emails and other tech support inquiries without needing physical help center equipment . 15 because zendesk software is cloud based a customer service representative can respond to clients through different phone numbers and email addresses all on the same interface . in addition customers can contact the business directly through the company s website or app making the help process both easier and quicker . zendesk s software is written in ruby on rails and is notable for its ability to integrate with dozens of content management systems customer relationship management tools and web apps . 16 17 the platform is available for mobile and tablet . 18 in 2011 zendesk founded the networked help desk initiative to create an open standard for sharing information between separate customer support applications . 19 in december 2013 zendesk announced integrations with surveymonkey and mailchimp to support the launch of surveys and email campaigns from within zendesk . 20 help center edit help center is self service tool allowing companies to set up knowledge bases online communities and self service portals for customers . 21 this feature entices users to start community discussions and crowdsource ideas as customers post questions . 22 embeddables edit embeddables allows companies to build customer support functions into mobile and web applications . 23 this includes a mobile software development kit which lets companies offer self service via help center . embeddables lets users create support tickets or chat with a help center representative in real time through the user s preferred mobile apps or online sites . this eliminates the need to leave the app for a third party help center . 24 embeddables marks an industry shift for customer service as the tech support process can now be part of the native experience on the site or application . 25 satisfaction prediction edit in 2015 zendesk rolled out satisfaction prediction which is the first machine learning predictive analytics feature specifically made to measure customer satisfaction . 26 satisfaction prediction takes historical customer interaction data to find which occurrences are most likely to lead to a negative customer experience . these negative experiences are defined via surveys while the customer journey events are diagnosed through artificial intelligence . 27 when new customer service tickets arise satisfaction prediction analyzes the customer signals and compares them to existing data . in doing this satisfaction prediction can intelligently estimate the user s overall satisfaction and allow companies to proactively identify customers that may be dissatisfied . 28 voice edit voice is a cloud based call center software that can immediately get customers in touch with a company representative via any internet connected device . 29 voice allows businesses to create phone numbers and forward calls to customer representatives devices forgoing the need for physical call centers . 30 advanced voice the latest iteration of zendesk s voice software also uses interactive voice response technology to correctly route customers to the relevant agent or department . 31 zopim edit following the acquisition of zopim technologies pte ltd in april 2014 zendesk announced zopim premium in april 2015 . zopim premium is an advanced version of zendesk s live chat software allowing larger teams to communicate with customers in real time . 32 zopim also features workforce management tools where team leaders can track chat agents performance and productivity . 33 bime edit after zendesk acquired we are cloud sas the company announced that bime analytics would be the core technology powering zendesk s customer data platform . 34 bime aggregates data from multiple sources including csv microsoft excel bigquery intercom google analytics and salesforce to enhance zendesk s data driven business intelligence . 35 relate edit relate is zendesk s online publication featuring editorial content dedicated customer service and business relationships . 36 relate has also been adopted as the branding name for zendesk conferences which specialize in customer service case studies brand relationships and engagement and industry changes . 37 38 accolades edit 2016 fastcompany ranked zendesk 5th on its list of most innovative companies in enterprise software 39 2016 svane included in the inc. founders 40 list 40 2015 winner of the most innovative use of big data at the uk cloud awards 41 2015 svane primdahl and aghassipour were included in the business insider silicon valley 100 42 2015 svane was included in inc. magazine s top 40 ceos to watch 43 2015 zendesk ranked first among bay area technology companies for highest percentage of women holding director roles and high paying positions 44 2015 rachel delacour ceo of bime analytics won the silver stevie award for female entrepreneur of the year for business products with 11 or more employees 45 philanthropy edit zendesk neighbor foundation edit zendesk s headquarters is located in the tenderloin neighborhood of san francisco and has made several philanthropic initiatives and charitable donations to the area . the zendesk neighbor foundation a nonprofit organization started by zendesk launched 1 million in funding for local charities working on social issues . 46 in 2015 zendesk neighbor foundation donated 100 000 to st. anthony s tenderloin technology lab . 47 since then the zendesk neighbor foundation has also expanded to the communities of melbourne 48 london 49 and madison 50 where the company has made 100 000 donations per community to boys and girls clubs public libraries employment workshops autism organizations and other local non profits . link sf copenhelp and link dane edit aside from monetary contributions zendesk has also used its technology to develop link sf . link sf is an app that helps homeless people find shelter food medical care technology access and hygiene services . 51 52 53 subsequent to link sf zendesk launched two similar apps copenhelp for copenhagen 54 and link dane for madison wisconsin . 55 references edit alex wilhelm 2015 02 11 . zendesk beats in q4 predicts sustained losses in 2015 on 45 50 % revenue growth . techcrunch . retrieved 2015 06 03 . defrancesco robert 2014 09 25 . zendesk masters customer service . cms wire . retrieved may 9 2016 . zendesk press center . zendesk . retrieved february 17 2016 . equities staff 2016 02 17 . zendesk inc zen jumps 8.93 % on february 17 . equities.com . retrieved may 9 2016 . press releases & announcements zendesk . zendesk 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