Vonage, a New Jersey-headquartered global cloud communications company, has acquired Singapore’s omnichannel conversational commerce startup Jumper.ai.
Transaction details haven’t been disclosed.
Under the transaction, Vonage could employ Jumper.ai’s technical- and developer-focused talent pool to complement its Vonage Communications Platform and broad API portfolio’s capabilities in conversational commerce.
The acquisition will also expand Vonage’s total addressable market with Jumper.ai’s packaged AI-enabled conversational commerce offering.
“With conversational commerce capabilities, we are meeting new and existing customer needs, providing businesses with embedded commerce capabilities to simplify the way they serve, connect with, and sell to their own customers from anywhere, on any channel,” said Rory Read, CEO of Vonage.
According to an April 2021 Conversational Commerce forecast by Juniper Research, the total addressable market in this space will be worth US$27 billion by 2025.
Also read: Is omnichannel commerce a fairy tale for SMEs in Singapore?
Founded in 2020, Jumper.ai creates omnichannel, messaging-first customer engagement and shopping journeys across social, messaging, and web.
It allows businesses to turn shoppers’ conversations into richer AI-enabled customer experiences with rapid service and sales follow-through.
Social messaging on platforms such as Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram, has become a trend in the in-demand retail space where people prefer a seamless shopping experience.
“It [Jumper.ai] transforms customer interactions from notifications and simple communications to conversations across the spectrum of customer engagement points,” Read stated.
Meanwhile, Vonage’s Communications Platform includes programmable unified communications and contact centre applications. It allows companies to integrate video, voice, chat, messaging and verification into existing products, workflows and systems.
“The addition of Jumper.ai’s conversational commerce and omnichannel capabilities fits perfectly into Vonage’s strategy and is a natural extension of Vonage’s offerings,” added Read.
Vonage counts brands such as L’oreal, Kiehl’s, Disney, Axe, Dove, Ben & Jerry’s and Burger King among its existing customers.
“Combining our market-leading technologies presents an opportunity to create new, amazing customer experiences, leveraging Jumper.ai technology and the global reach of Vonage,” said Yash Kotak, CEO and Co-founder of Jumper.ai.
In 2019, the US-based firm acquired Tel Aviv-based conversational AI startup Over.ai’s team and intellectual property. This is among Vonage’s seven deals that are worth US$884 million in total, according to data recorded on Tracxn. Its sectors of interest include customer service software, speech and voice recognition and more.
According to Statista’s data, over 3.6 billion people were using social media worldwide in 2020, with the global social media usage rate standing at 49 per cent. Forbes’s recent research also found that about two-thirds of shoppers employ social media in their shopping journey.
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Image Credit: Jumper.ai
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