Meta has spun out the enterprise startup Kustomer, which it bought in 2020 for roughly $1 billion.
Kustomer announced the move in a blog post published Monday, pitching the deal as the startup's "next chapter as an independent company."
Kustomer's original investors, which include Battery Ventures, Boldstart Ventures and Redpoint Ventures, have invested an additional $60 million in the startup, which now has a reported valuation of $250 million.
When Facebook parent Meta announced its acquisition of Kustomer in November 2020, the social networking giant pitched the startup's customer relationship management technology as a useful tool to help Meta's advertisers better manage their customer interactions on company-owned products like WhatsApp and Messenger.
Meta said at the time it would "support Kustomer's operations by providing the resources it needs to scale its business, improve and innovate its product offering and delight its customers."
Since the acquisition, however, Meta has had a challenging time operating in a troubled online advertising market. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has described 2023 as the company's "year of efficiency" and plans to lay off roughly 21,000 workers by early summer.
The layoffs to date have affected the company's ability to provide quality customer service to companies, influencers and certain Facebook group administrators, several sources told CNBC earlier this year.
"Our journey with Meta has been amazing, and we are proud of the work we accomplished together to transform how businesses support their customers," Kustomer CEO Brad Birnbaum said in a statement. "Our partnership has resulted in expanding our international offerings, broadening our capabilities with artificial intelligence and deepening our integration with Meta's modern communication channels, [like] Instagram, WhatsApp [and] Messenger."
