Marlin Equity Partners, a global investment firm, has acquired LiveOps Cloud Platform, a provider of cloud-based contact center technology. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
In January 2014, LiveOps formed two separate corporate entities that have operated independently since then. Only the LiveOps Cloud Platform business unit was involved in the deal. The other, LiveOps Agent Services, was not part of the acquisition and will continue to operate independently under current general manager Greg Hanover.
Vasili Triant was named CEO of LiveOps in November 2014 after serving for five months as its interim CEO. He.will continue to lead the LiveOps Cloud Platform business unit under Marlin.
According to Triant, LiveOps has undergone a significant business transformation in the past few years, gaining strong market share in both its contact center and agent businesses.
The LiveOps Cloud Platform has seen 84 percent growth in the past two years.
"Cloud contact center adoption is on the rise in exponential fashion. LiveOps predicted this shift years ago," Triant says. "Brands are finally ready to let go of their legacy on-premises contact centers. They're looking to the cloud for a more scalable, flexible, and cost-effective solution."
The cloud, Triant adds, "provides opportunities to impact the customer journey in real time and ultimately improve the customer experience. The cloud also empowers the customer service agents serving customers. A cloud contact center truly provides the agility and information that agents need to help customers faster and more efficiently, which is something every customer wants."
Triant doesn't expect much to change under Marlin's ownership. Marlin, he says, shares LiveOps' vision for cloud-based services. "This acquisition will allow us to focus our efforts on further developing our LiveOps Cloud Platform and look to add applications not already in our product suite," he says. "Marlin brings a lot of SaaS expertise to the table. We fully anticipate accelerated growth in the coming year with their support."
Ryan Wald, a partner at Marlin, shares that belief. "LiveOps Cloud Platform is a true cloud solution that is utilized by hundreds of brands worldwide," he said in a statement. "We believe the platform is well-positioned to continue on its growth trajectory, and we look forward to providing the financial and operational support to further build out the company's SaaS offering and extend its leadership position in the cloud contact center market."
According to Triant, the company is already working on its next-generation platform, which it plans for release in early 2016. In the meantime, he expects LiveOps Cloud Platform to "continue to look for ways to improve both the agent experience and the customer experience through emerging cloud-based technology."