Zoom adds voice biometrics, contact center services with $14.7B Five9 deal

Zoom has reached a deal to acquire Five9 in an all-stock transaction with an approximate value of $14.7 billion to build its biometric Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) solution into the videoconferencing platform.

The companies say the announcement will allow Zoom to offer more services to enterprise customers, and accelerate its growth by enabling it to enter the contact center market, which it says it worth $24 billion.

Five9 has been building out its support for developers integrating voice biometrics with call center services, most recently for virtual call center agents.

“Zoom is built on a core belief that robust and reliable communications technology enables interactions that build greater empathy and trust, and we believe that holds particularly true for customer engagement,” comments Zoom Founder and CEO Eric S. Yuan. “Enterprises communicate with their customers primarily through the contact center, and we believe this acquisition creates a leading customer engagement platform that will help redefine how companies of all sizes connect with their customers.”

The acquisition also complements the increasingly popular Zoom Phone, according to the company announcement. The companies are also expected to benefit from cross-selling opportunities.

Five9 also recently added voice biometrics from Nuance to its App Marketplace to help businesses fight fraud.

“Businesses spend significant resources annually on their contact centers, but still struggle to deliver a seamless experience for their customers,” says Rowan Trollope, chief executive of Five9. “It has always been Five9’s mission to make it easy for businesses to fix that problem and engage with their customers in a more meaningful and efficient way. Joining forces with Zoom will provide Five9’s business customers access to best-of-breed solutions, particularly Zoom Phone, that will enable them to realize more value and deliver real results for their business. This, combined with Zoom’s ‘ease-of use’ philosophy and broad communication portfolio, will truly enable customers to engage via their preferred channel of choice.”

Five9 shareholders will receive 0.5533 shares of Zoom’s Class A stock for each Five9 share, which based on Zoom’s price at the close of market on July 16 is just over $200 each, for an implied $14.7 billion transaction value.

At the close of the transaction, Five9 will continue operating as a unit of Zoom, with Rowan Trollope becoming a president of Zoom, and continuing to lead Five9, reporting to Yuan.

Article Topics

acquisitions  |  biometrics  |  call centers  |  enterprise  |  Five9  |  identity verification  |  video conferencing  |  voice biometrics  |  Zoom