helpshift
Helpshift image, demonstrating its mobile customer support system.

Microsoft Ventures is among the investors in a $23 million Series B financing round announced this morning by Helpshift, a San Francisco-based company that offers technology for in-app customer support on mobile devices and the web.

Salesforce Ventures also joined in the round, along with existing investors Intel Capital, Nexus Venture Partners, True Ventures and Visionnaire Ventures. Helpshift said the new investment brings its total capital raised to more than $36 million.

The addition of Microsoft and Salesforce as investors is notable in part because both companies are heavily involved in customer-relationship management technology — Microsoft through its Dynamics business, and Salesforce through its flagship CRM service.

It’s also the first big investment from Microsoft Ventures since the Redmond company announced the creation of its first formal venture fund last week — providing a glimpse of the types of investments the company plans to make.

Microsoft itself is a customer of Helpshift, which runs its services on Microsoft Azure, and Helpshift is also working on a version of its product for Microsoft Outlook on the desktop, according to a TechCrunch report this morning.  Helpshift says other major customers include Zynga, Virgin Media, Western Union, Flipboard, Shyp, Luxe, WordPress.

The company says it will use the funds to expand its teams across research and development, sales and marketing.

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