Team Wavecell
8x8 has entered into the communications platform-as-a-service (CPaaS) market through the acquisition of Singapore-based Wavecell.
In a US$125 million deal - including cash and stock - the acquisition is designed to enhance the vendor’s offerings within the service delivery space, alongside APIs for SMS, chat apps, voice and video.
Headquartered in Singapore, Wavecell is a leading cloud communications platform in Asia, with connectivity to more than 190 countries across the world.
Founded in 2010, the business has local presence in five countries - Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand and Hong Kong - and works alongside over 810 mobile operators and partners globally.
From a technology perspective, Wavecell offers a "complete CPaaS solution" including a cloud-first API platform with SMS, chat apps, video interaction and voice APIs capable of enabling enterprise applications such as application-to-person (A2P) messaging, omni-channel customer journeys and multi-factor authentication at scale.
According to IDC, the worldwide voice and text messaging CPaaS market is expected to grow to $10.9 billion by 2022.
“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. “8x8 is now the only cloud provider that owns the full, global-scale, cloud-native technology stack offering voice, video, messaging, and contact centre delivered both as pre-packaged applications and as enterprise-class APIs.
“We’re excited to welcome the Wavecell employees to the 8x8 family. 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.”
Verma said the acquisition will provide 8x8 with an “established technology platform and high-growth revenue business” to pursue CPaaS globally, while representing a "natural expansion" of 8x8’s cloud business from unified communications-as-a-service (UCaaS), contact centre-as-a-service (CCaaS) and video into the CPaaS market.
“We are delighted to become part of 8x8, one of the world’s leading cloud communications platforms,” added Olivier Gerhardt, CEO and co-founder of Wavecell. “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.”
At a high-level, Wavecell is expected to "further accelerate" 8x8’s growth, expand its international presence and deepen the vendor's technology capabilities in cloud communications.
The acquisition also expands 8x8’s presence into the Southeast Asian market, including Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, and Hong Kong, housing more than 500 enterprise customers, including Paidy, Tokopedia and Lalamove.
Wavecell also brings an R&D centre in Asia which allows 8x8 to drive growth in product innovation and delivery.
“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 of 8x8. “Customer demand for CPaaS is accelerating and now organisations 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 omni-channel fashion and understand the full customer journey."
