Bloomfire Acquires Seva to Enhance Knowledge Management With Generative AI
Knowledge management platform provider Bloomfire has acquired customer support company Seva for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition, which will combine the expertise in virtual knowledge and insights sharing of Austin-based Bloomfire with the purpose-built conversational AI capabilities of New York City-headquartered Seva, aims to enable enterprise organizations to optimize knowledge sharing, enhance CX, and spur business success.
Clients will also be able to harness the growing power of generative AI, sentiment analysis, and intelligent chatbots to drive meaningful interactions and unlock valuable insights from their knowledge base, executives from both companies say.
“Bloomfire’s acquisition of Seva marks an exciting milestone in our journey to revolutionize how companies access their enterprise knowledge,” says Bloomfire CEO Ben Little. Sanjay Jain, founder & CEO of Seva, says his company is excited to be joining Bloomfire, given that knowledge management is “one of the first categories to be disrupted by recent innovations in AI.” As part of the acquisition, Jain will join Bloomfire as chief technology officer (CTO).
Silver Lake and CPP Investments Complete Qualtrics Acquisition
Global technology investor Silver Lake and its co-investors, in partnership with the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments), have completed the acquisition of experience management (XM) firm Qualtrics.
The new owners have acquired 100% of the outstanding shares in Qualtrics that Silver Lake does not already own, including the entire majority ownership interest of German multinational software company SAP. Following completion of the transaction, Qualtrics stockholders, including SAP, will receive $18.15 in cash for each owned share of Qualtrics common stock, which has already ceased trading on the NASDAQ stock exchange.
Ryan Smith, Qualtrics founder and executive chairman, says he “couldn’t be more excited” for what lies ahead for Qualtrics. “XM has never been more important than it is right now. To be able to go into this next chapter at our size and scale as the leader in experience management—and do it alongside some of the best investors in the world—is a part of the Qualtrics story that no one could have imagined.”
Egon Durban, co-CEO of Silver Lake, says the leadership team has a powerful vision. “We believe deeply in the incredible opportunity ahead for Qualtrics as they continue to pave the way as the leader in experience management.”
Hafiz Lalani, managing director and head of direct private equity at CPP Investments, looks forward to supporting Qualtrics in driving continued innovation. “This is a unique opportunity to invest in a category creator led by a strong management team that is shaping a rapidly growing market.”
Related Article: Qualtrics Announces Plan to Create 400 New Jobs and Build Massive Office Hub
In connection with the completion of the acquisition, three stakeholders have joined Silver Lake in investing in Qualtrics. Global venture capital firm Accel, one of the earliest investors in Qualtrics, is investing $500 million. Also making co-investments of $250 million each are BDT & MSD Partners, a merchant bank built to serve the needs of business owners and long-term investors; and DFO Management, the family investment office of Michael Dell, founder and CEO of Dell Technologies.
India’s Tata Communications to Acquire Communications Platform Firm Kaleyra
Tata Communications, the giant telecommunications provider from India, has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Kaleyra, the Atlanta-based communication services provider whose proprietary platforms offer targeted personalization in banking and financial services, retail, and digital commerce.
With the transaction, Tata Communications hopes to gain an industry-proven platform with strong capabilities and scale, while also benefiting from Tier 1 carrier connections in the US, ready connectors to third-party platforms, and video services without the need for additional software plugins. The resulting business is likewise expected to leverage Tata’s large base of enterprise customers worldwide, including 300 of the Fortune 500 companies, along with extensive mobile network operator (MNO) connections and global expansion opportunities.
Under the terms of the agreement, Tata Communications will acquire Kaleyra in a cash-only transaction that values each share at $7.25, for a total of approximately $100 million, along with the assumption of all outstanding debt from Kaleyra. The transaction, which has been unanimously approved by the boards of directors of both companies, is subject to the approval of Kaleyra stockholders and other customary closing conditions. Upon the transaction’s close, expected in six to nine months, Kaleyra will become a subsidiary of Tata Communications.
“With this investment in Kaleyra, we will accelerate our push into the customer interactions platform market and fortify our global CommTech position,” says A.S. Lakshminarayanan, CEO at Tata Communications. “We are excited about Kaleyra’s remarkable talent and their demonstrated capabilities in next-gen technologies. With this acquisition, we will further build intelligent, intuitive, and innovative multichannel communication solutions to unlock new growth opportunities for our customers.”
Cyara Acquires Australia’s CentraCX, Adding VoC Solution
CX platform provider Cyara is acquiring Australia’s CentraCX, the maker of a comprehensive Voice of the Customer (VoC) solution designed specifically for the contact center.
Financial details of the transaction are not available, but the acquisition adds advanced VoC and customer feedback capabilities to Cyara’s portfolio of products and compliments Cyara’s existing capabilities, bringing insights that inform companies on how to design CX strategies that resonate with their target customers. By combining Cyara’s expertise in CX assurance with CentraCX’s ability to inform CX design with real customer feedback, organizations can continuously transform their CX initiatives and drive customer satisfaction and loyalty, the two companies say.
Related Article: M&A and Funding for Cyara, SaaS Group, Gupshup, Netcore Cloud, and Caplena
CentraCX is designed specifically for the needs of enterprise contact centers, and is integrated with Genesys Cloud CX. Unique to CentraCX is Tribal Analytics, a technology-enabled process that puts customer opinion at the center of business decision-making. Uniting customer feedback with agent perspective, Tribal Analytics delivers a framework to support a comprehensive continual improvement program.
“With the acquisition of CentraCX, we are uniquely able to offer an AI-enabled CX transformation platform that informs CX design with customer insights and feedback and enables delivery of those designs with speed and quality through automated testing and monitoring,” says Alok Kulkarni, CEO and co-founder of Redwood City, California-based Cyara.
DAS Technology Acquires 3 Birds, Expanding CDXP Technology Solutions
DAS Technology, the Scottsdale, Arizona-based provider of automotive customer data and experience platform (CDXP) technology, has acquired the assets of 3 Birds, a fellow CDXP technology company that delivers software as a service (SaaS)-based marketing, analytics, and consumer engagement solutions.
No financial details of the transaction have been disclosed, but the acquisition makes DAS Technology the largest CDXP provider in the automotive and specialty vehicle markets, according to DAS Technology officials. DAS Technology already serves more than 9,200 retailers, partners, and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in the automotive, recreational vehicle (RV), marine, motorcycle, and EV-related industries, and the acquisition will enhance its AI and data mining capabilities while expanding advanced analytic data sets to target consumer engagement opportunities.
Kristen Judd, CEO and co-founder of 3 Birds, says the company is “beyond excited” to join the DAS Technology team. “The combination of DAS Technology and 3 Birds enables dealers to harness the power of their first-party data to dynamically deliver consumer engagement opportunities throughout the customer lifecycle while generating actionable business intelligence.”
Two of the 3 Birds co-founders, including Judd and Len Wohadlo, have joined the DAS Technology executive leadership team, along with an additional 3 Birds team members. Chapel Hill, North Carolina-based 3 Birds was founded in 2009 and supports major OEMs and dealerships nationwide through Tier I and Tier III programs, with thousands of dealerships relying on its dealer digital Evaluation programs. The company operates in 16 countries, including the US, Canada, India, Australia, Japan, and South Korea.
Alexi Venneri, co-founder and CEO of DAS Technology, says the 3 Birds acquisition is the ninth merger-and-acquisitions (M&A) deal for DAS Technology. Notable M&A activity since the company’s founding in 2010 includes a merger between Digital Air Strike and ResponseLogix to obtain patented AI lead response technology. The acquisitions of TMPi and LotVantage added inventory merchandising technology while doubling the size of the DAS reseller and channel networks. Other significant additions include expanding industry relationships with the deal-making conference Autovate, and the purchase of BestRide.com from Gannett, adding the company’s first customer-centric inventory marketplace.
Author Information
Alex is responsible for writing about trends and changes that are impacting the customer experience market. He had served as Principal Editor at Village Intelligence, a Los Angeles-based consultancy on technology impacting healthcare and healthcare-related industries. Alex was also Associate Director for Content Management at Omdia and Informa Tech, where he produced white papers, executive summaries, market insights, blogs, and other key content assets. His areas of coverage spanned the sectors grouped under the technology vertical, including semiconductors, smart technologies, enterprise & IT, media, displays, mobile, power, healthcare, China research, industrial and IoT, automotive, and transformative technologies.
At IHS Markit, he was Managing Editor of the company’s flagship IHS Quarterly, covering aerospace & defense, economics & country risk, chemicals, oil & gas, and other IHS verticals. He was Principal Editor of analyst output at iSuppli Corp. and Managing Editor of Market Watch, a fortnightly newsletter highlighting significant analyst report findings for pitching to the media. He started his career in writing as an Editor-Reporter for The Associated Press.
