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Niraj Rout Bet His Career on the Inbox
A compiler engineer saw knowledge disappearing inside email threads. He spent the next decade turning that familiar mess into a customer-service system built around how teams already work.
Hiver
Hiver is a customer service platform built on top of Gmail and Google Workspace. It turns shared mailboxes like support@ and sales@ into a collaborative help desk - letting teams assign emails, track status, automate workflows, and measure SLAs without leaving their inbox. Founded in 2011 (originally as GrexIt), Hiver now serves more than 10,000 organizations, including Harvard University, Flexport, and Upwork, and has expanded into AI-assisted support across email, live chat, voice, and WhatsApp.
Nehal Shaikh
Nehal Shaikh is the Chief Executive Officer (India) at Front, the customer operations platform headquartered in San Francisco. Front helps more than 8,000 companies manage customer communication across email, SMS, live chat, and other channels through shared inboxes, AI-powered automation, and real-time analytics. Backed by $338M in total funding and valued at $1.7B since its 2022 Series D, Front crossed $100M in annual recurring revenue in 2025. Based in Maharashtra, India, Shaikh leads Front's India operations as the company scales its AI-driven customer service platform globally.