8x8, a cloud provider of voice, video, chat, and contact center solutions, has acquired Wavecell, a Singapore-based global communications platform-as-a-service (CPaaS) provider, for approximately $125 million.
The acquisition provides 8x8 with an established technology platform and high-growth revenue business to pursue CPaaS globally and represents a natural expansion of 8x8's cloud business from unified communications-as-a-service (UCaaS), contact center-as-a-service (CCaaS), and video into the CPaaS market.
Wavecell is expected to further accelerate 8x8's growth, expand its international presence, and deepen its technology capabilities in cloud communications. The acquisition also expands 8x8's presence into Southeast Asia.
Founded in 2010, Wavecell offers a complete CPaaS solution, including a cloud-first API platform with SMS, chat apps, video interaction, and voice APIs that enable mission-critical enterprise applications, such as application-to-person (A2P) messaging, omnichannel customer journey, and multifactor authentication at scale.
"The market opportunity in CPaaS is growing rapidly, and this acquisition enables us to quickly provide these services to our customers around the world," said Vik Verma, CEO of 8x8, in a statement. "8x8 is now the only cloud provider that owns the full, global-scale, cloud-native technology stack offering voice, video, messaging, and contact center delivered both as pre-packaged applications and as enterprise-class APIs. We now have a significant market presence in Asia and expect to continue to expand in the region and globally in order to meet evolving customer requirements."
"With the acquisition of Wavecell, we can now offer customers enterprise-class APIs, bringing a CPaaS solution to our global communications platform," said Dejan Deklich, chief product officer at 8x8, in a statement. "Customer demand for CPaaS is accelerating, and now organizations can easily add real-time communication capabilities that include SMS, chat apps, voice, and video to improve the experience for their end-customers. The integration of all the API’s and data into one CPaaS platform gives 8x8 customers unprecedented ability to engage with end users in true omnichannel fashion and understand the full customer journey."
"We are delighted to become part of 8x8, one of the world's leading cloud communications platforms. Now is the right time to leverage the global expansion of UCaaS, CCaaS and CPaaS services to better serve our customers' growing demand for communication services and to continually drive greater innovation," said Olivier Gerhardt, CEO and co-founder of Wavecell, in a statement.
Wavecell provides global coverage for multichannel communications spanning 190 countries through relationships with 192 network operators worldwide and business partners such as WhatsApp. Its carrier-grade infrastructure enables customers to share more than 2 billion messages per year across these channels.