India’s MoEngage bets that the future of marketing is millions of AI agents

Indian customer engagement software company MoEngagewhich serves brands in global markets, has acquired the San Francisco-based startup Aampje in an all-cash deal, betting that AI agents making decisions for individual customers will become the future of marketing.

MoEngage did not disclose the financial terms of the transaction, but a source familiar with the matter told TechCrunch that the deal was worth tens of millions of dollars in cash.

Founded in 2020, Aampe develops software that assigns a dedicated AI agent to each customer, allowing brands to personalize their messages based on individual behavior rather than traditional audience segments and campaign rules. The startup has more than 30 customers in the US, Europe and Asia Pacific and has grown annual recurring revenue by 150% in the past year, MoEngage co-founder and CEO Raviteja Dodda said in an interview.

Dodda told TechCrunch that the acquisition will help the company win customers through competing marketing platforms such as Salesforce and Adobe.

“Much of our growth is driven by enterprise customer migrations from Salesforce Marketing Cloud and Adobe Experience Cloud,” said Dodda.

MoEngage recently signed three to four multimillion-dollar annual contract value agreements with customers switching from Salesforce, Dodda said. He is hopeful that the Aampe acquisition will help him win more such customers.

The acquisition comes as software companies rush to integrate AI more deeply into enterprise applications, moving beyond tools that generate content or assist employees toward agents that make autonomous decisions. In marketing, this includes deciding which customers to target, what messages to send, and when to send them.

Aampe’s technology is used by brands like Swiggy, Grab and Taxfix, some of which also use MoEngage’s customer engagement platform.

The acquisition comes six months after MoEngage raised $280 million through a mix of primary and secondary transactions. Approximately 20 Aampe employees will join MoEngage, bringing the company’s workforce to approximately 820 people.

MoEngage says it serves more than 1,350 consumer brands in 75 countries, including customers in industries such as retail, financial services, media and food delivery.

Founded in 2020, Aampe has raised approximately $28 million in three funding rounds. The startup counts Peak XV Partners, Z47 and Theory Ventures among its investors.