Exotel, Ameyo merge to build customer engagement cloud platform

Bengaluru based cloud communications firm Exotel and contact centre solutions provider Ameyo on Tuesday said they are joining forces to form a customer engagement cloud platform.

The resulting combined entity, according to a statement, will have its presence in 60 countries with an estimated annual recurring revenue of $40 million or Rs 297.26 crore.   The companies did not disclose the financial details. 

“We've always wanted to build the best enterprise contact center software. Ameyo already has one of the best enterprise contact center software,” Shivakumar Ganesan, CEO &Co-founder of Exotel, said.

Exotel was founded in 2011 and has close to 200 employees while Ameyo has 450.

Gurugram based Ameyo, an omnichannel customer engagement platform, was founded in 2003 by Bishal Lachhiramka, Nayan Jain and Sachin Bhatia.   Post the merger, Lachhiramka and Jain, along with investor Forum Synergies are expected to exit the company.  Bhatia will join the board of directors of Exotel and will serve as the CEO of Ameyo.

Ameyo has of over 2,000 clients globally, including Ola, HDFC Bank, Bank Bazaar, Byju’s, Vedantu and Standard Chartered Bank, among others. Its solution portfolio includes omnichannel capabilities such as voice, dialers, interactive voice response and social media solutions.

“The combination of Exotel and Ameyo creates the largest player in emerging markets. Customers would soon be able to unify their customer data and move towards AI to improve customer experiences." Sachin Bhatia, CEO of Ameyo.

An April 2021 study by Marketsandmarkets.com showed that the customer engagement solutions market is expected to reach $23.19 billion by 2023, at a compound annual growth rate of 10.3% between 2018 and 2021.  

Ishwar Sridharan, COO of Exotel said that this would create India’s first vertically integrated B2B carrier, with the goal of moving enterprises to the cloud towards smart customer data usage.  

“Communications is moving to the cloud, and Exotel's vision is to lead the cloud migration."  Sridharan said.