Meet Guru: Bringing You Knowledge Everywhere You Need It

We’re thrilled to announce our Series A investment in Guru, which is reshaping the way information is gathered and shared within organizations. Instead of relegating knowledge to seldom-accessed wikis or simply letting it live in employee’s heads, Guru provides an all-knowing coach, which anticipates the information customer-facing teams need while they are engaged in a given task, and delivers it to them in-context and at their moment of need. The system uses machine-learning to understand which pieces of information result in which customer outcomes, and improves the recommendations it provides over time.

This concept of using behavioral data networks and machine learning to coach workers to improve their performance in real-time is a phenomenon we call the Coaching Networks, and we think it will help create the next generation of iconic enterprise cloud companies. We’re thrilled to add Guru to our portfolio of early leaders in this space.

As we spoke with customers, it became clear that this in-context, real-time coaching is having profound effects. For example, Intercom has seen a 60% reduction in the amount of time it takes their support teams to respond to customers. Shopify has seen a 5x improvement in customer-facing knowledge consumption and a concurrent decrease in average handle time.

These outcomes aren’t surprising when you talk to Guru’s end users. We heard from many folks who told us that they can’t imagine doing their jobs without Guru. Indeed, the Guru coach has become a core part of workflow for these teams. In fact, Guru has higher engagement rates than previous portfolio company Yammer did at the same stage.

While our interest in Guru was initially driven by its strong fit with our Coaching Networks thesis and customer passion, getting to know its co-founders Rick Nucci and Mitch Stewart brought our excitement to the next level. Rick, Mitch and most of the senior Guru team worked together previously at Boomi, which Rick co-founded and later sold to Dell. Boomi has continued to grow and is now amongst the largest tech companies in Philly. Rick and Mitch have the experience that comes from having done it before, and the ambition that comes from having tapped into a massive idea. We couldn’t be more excited to partner with them to help make Guru ubiquitous.