Iovox strengthens its international call tracking leadership by acquiring WannaSpeak

The California-based iovox, a global market leader of inbound and outbound call tracking solutions, announced today that it has acquired French-based WannaSpeak.

Online Marketplaces asked Ryan Gallagher, co-founder and CEO of iovox, the reason behind the acquisition.

“We both have a solid business ethic, and we’ve always thought of WannaSpeak as the closest to us in the market. We have always had great respect for them, as they have a good product and a great team, so it made perfect sense for us to strengthen our team,” said Gallagher.

He added that being able to find an entire team who knows the business inside and out, the way WannaSpeak does, having built their company from the ground up and still there since the beginning, is nearly impossible. “Hiring someone who knows what we do is very difficult. Our competitors have a very high staff turn-around, nobody has the original CEO at the helm in the entire industry. Finding a team who has been working together since the start and continues to grow and evolve… it seemed crazy not to get them.”

We asked Gallagher what new markets they plan to enter.

“They (WannaSpeak) have some products which we don’t have, and we have a lot which they don’t. Some of our customers want products which they offer, and in turn, their customers are requesting some of our products. They have some experience of going mobile, and we have some as well, but not as much as they do, consequently the union is due to strengthen our mobile positioning, allowing us to further help our existing customers and their technology. There is a lot that we do with our customers that they don’t, because our products are comparable but different in some areas, just overlapping products. They are symbiotic, and work well together,” stated Gallagher.

Some of iovox’s first customers were in France, and the company has operated there successfully for many years; Gallagher is confident that the WannaSpeak customers will continue to receive excellent support from a company that truly understands the market and their needs.

“We believe 2019 has the makings of a breakout year for iovox due to the traction we’re seeing in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region for our core services, continued organic growth throughout Europe, the development and release of our new mobile solutions, and acquisitions such as this with WannaSpeak,” added Gallagher.

Strategic Benefits

The recently completed transaction:

•    Solidifies European call tracking leadership. The acquisition of WannaSpeak adds important European brands to the iovox customer base including Orange, Axel Springer, Bouygues Telecom, Total (Direct Énergie), BNP Paribas and Audi.
•    Broadens the product portfolio. The combined company’s product portfolio will be unrivaled in its capabilities to handle, on a worldwide basis, inbound and outbound call tracking, including dynamic call tracking, web call back options, transcription, speech analytics, and the integration of phone data with marketing and CRM platforms. Solutions from iovox are designed for corporations as well as individuals via a unique new mobile app that iovox has been trialing through 2018.
•    Strengthens leadership with experienced call tracking executives who have pioneered call tracking services in Europe with early work at eStara.
“We’re proud of what we built at WannaSpeak, yet we see the product vision of iovox which is distinctive in the industry and a big reason Benoit and I wanted to be part of the future of iovox,” said Thibaut Behaghel, co-founder and CEO of WannaSpeak.

“When evaluating strategic options, we found a fit with iovox that is perfectly aligned with the global customer and innovation focused culture we built at WannaSpeak,” said Benoit Dausse, co- founder and General Manager of WannaSpeak.

All WannaSpeak staff are joining iovox and will continue to support customers while taking on expanded roles in the combined business.

Thibaut Behaghel will be taking on the role of Director of Business Development with a focus on globally growing the company’s mobile business with an aim of making iovox the standard for mobile call tracking. Behaghel has prior experience with mobile through his role at LastPass where he helped the company establish a leadership position in Europe and throughout Asia prior to its acquisition by LogMeIn in 2015.

Benoit Dausse will be taking on the role of Director of Sales, EMEA for iovox with a focus on growing the core enterprise call tracking business throughout Europe. Leveraging deep knowledge of the market, Dausse will be leading efforts across industries where call tracking has a proven and clear- cut return on investment.

In the near term, services by WannaSpeak and iovox will continue to be supported as standalone products. However, deeper integration of the offerings and operational processes will occur throughout 2019 creating options for customers to add new features and functionalities.

The terms of the transaction were not disclosed, but growth capital was provided by Columbia Lake Partners and Octopus Ventures.

SOURCE iovox
Edited by Gordana Davila

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