Dec 7, 2021 - Economy

Call center software provider Genesys raises $580M

Dan Primack

Illustration of a phone with the line hanging off of it. — Illustration: Eniola Odetunde/Axios

Genesys, an SF-based cloud call center software provider led by former Skype CEO Tony Bates, raised $580 million led by Salesforce Ventures at a $21 billion valuation.

Why it matters: Investors love call centers and the software that drives them, even if they drive the rest of us to despair. Among those investors is Zoom, which recently failed to buy Genesys rival Five9, after its $14.7 billion offer was rejected by Five9 shareholders.

Return on investment: Permira bought Genesys from Alcatel-Lucent for just $1.5 billion in 2012, and then sold around a 24% stake in 2016 to Hellman & Friedman for $900 million. Other investors in the new round include BlackRock, D1 Capital Partners and ServiceNow Ventures.

The bottom line: "While organizations were already planning to take the traditional on-premises call center systems to the cloud prior to the pandemic, the move to remote work forced many companies to make the pivot more quickly. Now, companies are trying to go a step further and link call center software with programs like customer relations systems or marketing programs." — Joseph Williams, Bloomberg

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Call center software provider Genesys raises $580M

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