Maxar buys stake in Blackshark.ai; Gupshup snaps up AskSid

In deal-making news, Gupshup, India’s San Francisco -headquartered conversational AI platform made yet another acquisition. It acquired AskSid, a conversational artificial intelligence (AI) provider for eCommerce and retail brands, for an undisclosed amount. Separately, space solutions provider Maxar Technologies made a strategic investment in Blackshark.ai, an AI-powered geospatial analytics services specialist.

Gupshup-AskSid

Gupshup, a global conversational engagement platform, announced the acquisition of Bengaluru-based AskSid, a conversational AI provider to e-commerce and retail companies around the world.

AskSid’s full-stack AI solution including the Retail AI brain, would strengthen Gupshup’s customer experience (CX) offerings and will help make the entire shopping journey – across pre-purchase, purchase, and post-purchase phases – fully conversational, according to a statement.

AskSid’s clients include AkzoNobel, Danone, Wolford, Akris, and Himalaya Wellness. Early investors in the startup included technology leaders Rajan Anandan (ex-Google), Krishnakumar Natarajan (ex-Mindtree), Parthasarathy NS (ex-Mindtree), and Radha R (ex-Microsoft and Mindtree).

“Gupshup is building the most comprehensive conversational commerce solution and AskSid’s deep-domain AI offering will help us bring even more advanced capabilities to e-commerce and retail businesses worldwide,” said Beerud Sheth, Co-founder and CEO, Gupshup.

Maxar-Blackshark

Maxar Technologies (NYSE: MAXR), a provider of comprehensive space solutions and secure, precise, geospatial intelligence, has made a strategic investment in Blackshark.ai, a leading provider of AI-powered geospatial analytics services.

The Blackshark.ai platform processes petabytes of satellite imagery in hours, and it detects and segments objects, roads, vegetation, and other infrastructure on the surface of the planet without human intervention.

Maxar said it expects the acquisition to play an innovative role in its 3D Earth Intelligence product portfolio. It would also open up a new revenue stream by leveraging Maxar’s global cloudless satellite imagery base map, Vivid, to create a highly performant and photo-realistic 3D map for enterprise and government customers in industries such as gaming, metaverse, simulation, and mixed reality environments.

“We’re excited to partner with Blackshark.ai to extend our geospatial analytics offering and bring a AAA video-game quality 3D digital twin of our planet to market,” said Dan Nord, Maxar Senior Vice President and General Manager of Enterprise Earth Intelligence.

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