Bandwidth to acquire UK-owned CaaS firm Voxbone, expand coverage to 60-plus countries

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RALEIGH — Bandwidth, the communications software company that once started started in a Raleigh spare bedroom, is scaling its coverage to 60-plus countries with its latest acquisition.

On Monday, it confirmed it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Voxbone, a communication as a service (CaaS) company headquartered in Brussels and majority-owned by Vitruvian Partners based in London, United Kingdom.

The acquisition price: $527 million, six times Voxbone’s anticipated yearly revenue, said Bandwidth, which is expected to be more than $85 million, up more than 25 percent year-over-year.

“Today’s announcement accelerates our international strategy by several years,” said David Morken, Bandwidth’s co-founder and CEO, in a statement.

“We are bringing together leading domestic and international enterprise cloud communications platforms to supercharge global cloud communications. Our current and future customers will benefit from using a unified software platform, network and team to serve people around the world.”

Founded in 2005, Voxbone is a communications platform and IP voice network across 60-plus countries. It counts Uber, Zoom, 8×8 and Skype among its users, and has around 200 employees located in Brussels, London, Romania, Singapore, and the United States.

The acquisition is expected to close on October 31, after which Voxbone will operate under the Bandwidth brand.

Back in 1999, Morken was fresh from serving in the Marine Corps as an advocate judge when he founded Bandwidth from a friend’s spare bedroom. For more than 18 years, he bootstrapped the company. Then in 2017, Bandwidth went public valued at around $300 million. Last year, it hit the $2 billion mark.

Companies like Google, Microsoft, Rover and Zoom use Bandwidth’s APIs to easily embed voice, messaging and 911 access into software and applications.

This April, the company announced plans for a 500,000-square-feet facility at the southwest corner of Reedy Creek Road and Edwards Mill Road. As part of the project, it will purchase a 40-acre plot of land from the State of North Carolina for a $40 million price tag.

The uptick: 1,165 new jobs with an average salary of $96,832.

Original Article Source: WRAL TechWire