PGi has acquired Via-Vox Ltd, doing business as Powwownow, for $52.6 million. The move expands PGi’s international presence: Powwownow is a Europe-focused conferencing and collaboration provider focused on small and medium sized businesses.
“Powwownow’s dominance in the SMB space in the U.K. makes it a valuable acquisition for PGi,” said Boland T. Jones, PGi founder, chairman and CEO. “The acquisition reinforces our strategy of expanding PGi’s customer base and identifying products that enhance our portfolio, while delivering meaningful revenue and earnings accretion that enable us to fund additional growth investments. Powwownow users will gain access to our award-winning Web conferencing solutions, iMeet and GlobalMeet, to drive their businesses forward.”
The acquisition positions PGi as the second-largest independent conferencing and collaboration provider in Europe. Founded in 2004, Powwownow offers its customers conference calling with frictionless sign-up, simplified billing and an SMB-focused go-to-market approach. Powwownow serves approximately 240,000 active users in the U.K.,France and Germany and has a current projected annual revenue run rate of approximately $22 million.
“Powwownow’s unique brand and innovative approach to audio conferencing has yielded powerful growth in Europe, particularly in the U.K. With a maniacal customer acquisition strategy, amazing discipline in customer experience execution and a laser focus on the SMB market, this acquisition provides PGi with a growing brand and a captive audience for its iMeet and GlobalMeet Web products,” said Marc Beattie, senior analyst at Wainhouse Research.
“Joining forces with PGi, one of the original innovators in the conferencing and collaboration industry worldwide, expands the scale, reach and service options available to Powwownow customers,” added Paul Lees, founder and CEO of Powwownow. “Powwownow brings PGi new go-to-market capabilities, including our brand awareness, small business marketing expertise and online infrastructure. We are thrilled to join the PGi family.”
