Meta spins out customer service startup Kustomer amid ‘year of efficiency’

Published

2 years ago

May 16, 2023

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Visitors take photos in front of the Meta (Facebook) sign at its headquarters in Menlo Park, California, on December 29, 2022.

Tayfun Coskun | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

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.”

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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.”

Watch: Meta’s next growth leg is revenue acceleration

Meta's next growth leg is revenue but it's not reflected in stock price, says Loop's Rob Sanderson

Technology

More demand than supply gives companies an edge, Jim Cramer says

Published

1 hour ago

October 24, 2025

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More demand than supply gives companies an edge, Jim Cramer says

“Supply constrained,” are the two of the most important words CNBC’s Jim Cramer said he’s heard so far during earnings season and explained why this dynamic is favorable for companies.

“When you’re supplied constrained, you have the ability to raise prices, and that’s the holy grail in any industry,” he said.

Intel‘s strong earnings results were in part because of more demand than supply, Cramer suggested. He noted that the company’s CFO, David Zinsner, said the semiconductor maker is supply constrained for a number of products, and that “industry supply has tightened materially.”

Along with Intel, other tech names that are also supply constrained and performing well on the market include Micron, AMD and Nvidia, Cramer continued.

These companies don’t have enough product in part because the storage needs of artificial intelligence are incredible high, Cramer said. He added that he thinks demand has overwhelmed supply because semiconductor capital equipment companies didn’t manufacture enough of their own machines as they simply didn’t anticipate such a volume of orders.

Outside of tech, Cramer said he thinks airplane maker Boeing and energy company GE Vernova are also supply constrained, adding that he thinks the former will say it’s short on most of its planes when it reports earnings next week. GE Vernova is supply constrained with its power equipment, like turbines that burn natural gas, he continued, which is the primary energy source for the ever-growing crop of data centers.

GE Vernova and Boeing are also set to be winners because they make big-ticket items that other countries can buy from the U.S. to help close the trade deficit, Cramer added.

“In the end, we have more demand than supply in a host of industries and that’s the ticket for good stock performance,” he said. “I don’t see that changing any time soon.”

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Technology

3 takeaways from Intel earnings: Cash flow, foundry progress and hardware surprise

Published

7 hours ago

October 24, 2025

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3 takeaways from Intel earnings: Cash flow, foundry progress and hardware surprise

Wall Street remains skeptical on Intel despite its return to profitability

Intel snapped a losing streak of six straight quarterly losses and returned to profitability in the third quarter.

In its first earnings report since the Trump administration acquired a 10% stake in the company, the U.S. chipmaker posted strong revenue, noting robust demand for chips that it expects to continue into 2026.

Client computing revenue, which includes chips for PCs and laptops, grew 5% year over year, benefiting from PC market stabilization and artificial intelligence PC prospects.

CEO Lip-Bu Tan said in a call with analysts Thursday that artificial intelligence “is a strong foundation for sustainable long-term growth as we execute.”

The chip strength and demand were bright spots, but there were areas of concern as well, with the company’s foundry business still needing a big break.

Here are three takeaways from the chipmaker’s Q3 report:

Cash flow

“We significantly improved our cash position and liquidity in Q3, a key focus for me since becoming CEO in March,” Tan said on a call with analysts Thursday.

Intel landed an $8.9 billion investment from the U.S. government in August, along with $2 billion from Softbank, but has not yet received the $5 billion tied to a deal with Nvidia. The company expects that deal to close by the end of Q4.

With all of those transactions completed, plus the Altera sale, Intel will have $35 billion in cash on hand, CFO David Zinser told CNBC.

The U.S. government is the company’s biggest shareholder, and Intel stock is up more than 50% since Aug. 22, when Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick announced the deal.

“Like any shareholder, we have to keep in touch with them,” Zinser said of the U.S. stake. “We don’t tell them how the numbers are going before the quarter. We generally talk to them like Fidelity,” another Intel shareholder.

Stock Chart IconStock chart icon

Intel 3-month stock chart.

Foundry

The firm’s foundry remains a work in progress.

Revenue fell 2% over the year before, and it has yet to land a major customer.

Intel now has two fabs running 18A nodes, which are designed for AI and high-performance computing applications.

“We are making steady progress on Intel 18A,” Tan said of its latest chip technology. “We are on track to bring Panther Lake to market this year.”

Zinser said the more advanced 14A nodes won’t be put in supply until the company has “real firm demand.”

Old stuff still selling

Zinser said the company’s older chipmaking processes, or nodes, have continued to do well, “and that was probably the part that was more unexpected.”

Zinser said the chipmaker met some of the central processing unit (CPU) demand with inventory on hand, but they will be behind in Q1, “probably Q2 and maybe in Q3.”

The supply crunch has been with older Intel 10 and 7 manufacturing technologies.

Many customers are opting for less advanced hardware to refresh their operating systems, demonstrating enterprises aren’t waiting for cutting-edge chips when proven technology gets the job done.