The editor of online customer relationship management and measurement solutions has joined forces with Iovox, its competitor and one of the leaders in the British market. The target brings just under €2 million in revenues to the new entity.
In the market of search analytics, display and call advertising solution providers, according to Benoît Dausse, one of the two founders of Wannaspeak, merging has become trendy. This French market player and his analysis shows his will to cross the English Channel to join his cpmpetitor Iovox. His company was created eight years ago and he had been thinking about working together with an important European stakeholder in order to prove himself abroad. “We have also looked into the possibility of fund raising, especially with American investors but they offered too little to develop our company. In the meantime, we had more buyback or partnership options. Working with Ryan Gallagher – the Ivox CEO- has led us to prefer endorsment.” say Benoît Dausse and Thibault Behaghel. Indeed,Wannaspeak madated Crescendo Finance and shares many clients with the company ( in a portfolio of telecom operators, of banks and ebuisiness stakeholders). Another French market participant, Allo-Media chose to raise funds about a year ago ( read below).
New acquisitions to come
Ivox was founded in 2007 and financed this acquisition through a capital increase in which VC Historique Octopu Ventures took part , among others. Wannaspeak offers solutions in the Saas mode that enables its clients to analyse and identify outgoing call to identify sources of acquisitions ( email, Facebook, keyword campaign and so on). The executive and sales manager in the EMEA region, Ryan Gallagher describes his company as “allowing our clients to establish keyword purchase campaigns depending on their cost-efficiency.” With around 2 million euros in revenues in 2018 and a dozen employees, Wannaspeak enables the new group to reach 50 members of staff. Unlike its competitor Marchex, listed in the Nasdaq, and that bought back Callcap and Telmetrics, Iovox has raised 10 million euros and will prove very active on the external growth field. Indeed, many operations are planned for the upcoming year on the European continent.
