Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
UK cloud-based call centre specialist NewVoiceMedia is moving into the US but under its own steam, not because it has been acquired. The company set up an office in San Francisco last month but with an additional $35m of funding from new investor Bessemer Venture Partners it can accelerate its expansion in the US, as well as Asia-Pacific and continental Europe.
The company is winning over investors - it raised $20m in its last funding round at the start of the year - and is delivering revenue growth in the 60%+ region which is nearly twice the rate of the overall call centre market according to data cited by NewVoiceMedia.
NewVoiceMedia was one of the companies we highlighted in the Cloud UK 2013 report. It stands out because it is a young pure-play SaaS provider in the call centre area, aiming to disrupt incumbents like Cisco,Nortel with their traditional on premise offerings. It is also pure in that it has developed its integrated suite in-house (rather than taking the acquisition short cut), to produce a seamless solution. That is an advantage in the multi-channel call centre and workforce management areas which are plagued by fragmented systems and poor performance that can impact the customer experience which is top of businesses agendas.
One of the other reasons we like the company is that it is doing more than just replicating on premise solutions in the cloud. As CEO Jonathan Gale explained, it is not focussed on outbound cold calling but the complete customer lifecycle via permission-based marketing and providing rich information for inbound call support. That requires integration with other cloud solutions, which it is doing e.g. with Salesforce.com. We believe inter-cloud integration and cloud vendor partnerships are key to cloud pure-plays – the company has this in hand but it would be good to see more activity in this area.
