Croatian cloud communications platform Infobip raises additional €436.6M; to acquire Peerless Network

Vodnjan, Croatia-based Infobip Group, a cloud communications platform for customer engagement, announced that it has acquired Chicago-based VoIP provider Peerless Network, marking Infobip’s fourth acquisition in under a year.

The deal is expected to be completed in 2022 and will include a combination of Infobip shares and cash. Peerless Network management will roll parts of its holdings into Infobip.

In September 2021, Infobip also secured, through direct loan placement, additional funding in the amount of $500M led by funds managed by the Credit Group of Ares Management Corporation, and funds and accounts managed by BlackRock. This is Infobip’s second funding round after One Equity Partner’s €300M investment in H2 2020.

“Disruptor and aggressive innovator in the telecommunications industry”

Founded in 2008 by Douglass Lee and John Barnicle, Peerless Network offers carrier and enterprise interconnection services for telecommunication companies, service providers, and enterprises. It offers voice, UCaaS, SIP Trunking, messaging, APIs, MS Teams integration, and other collaboration products and services. 

With its own voice network, the company is trusted by enterprises, Fortune 500 companies, MNOs, MVNOs and IXCs, and the nation’s largest CLECs and VOIP Service Providers. 

For more than a decade, Peerless Network claims to have been delivering cost-effective and simple-to-deploy voice solutions to meet work-from-anywhere business needs. Covering 93 per cent of the US population, the company has more than 4,500 interconnections in 49 US states, processing 9 billion monthly minutes in over 200 markets.

Speaking on the acquisition, Barnicle says, “The development enables us to expand services, capabilities, and offer scale to our customers. Combining our voice offering with Infobip’s messaging capabilities truly prepares us for leadership in the rapidly developing market for cloud communications. This acquisition will, among other things, enable Peerless Network to comprehensively support its customers with their international needs outside of the US.”

How will Peerless help Infobip?

The deal extends Infobip’s voice presence in the US and makes its suite of CPaaS products available to Peerless customers.

Silvio Kutic, CEO of Infobip says, “Today’s announcement accelerates our international growth strategy by several years. Financially, strategically, and operationally, this is very positive. The acquisition enables Infobip to continue to grow its business in the US, in sync with Peerless Network’s strategy. Our customers will benefit from access to the suite of SaaS enabled CPaaS software available in the market on one single platform for an end-to-end customer experience. Further, Peerless will substantially strengthen the voice proposition for the Infobip CPaaS offering.”

Kutic adds, “Together we will offer a global network with local teams to serve businesses and people around the world, focused on delivering unbeatable customer experiences at scale.”

The two companies will process more than 30 billion monthly customer interactions across the full range of communication channels in more than 190 countries around the globe. 

About Infobip Group

Founded in 2006 by Izabel Jelenic, Roberto Kutic, and Silvio Kutic, Infobip is a cloud communications platform that enables businesses to build connected experiences across all stages of the customer journey. 

Through a single platform, the company’s omnichannel engagement, identity, user authentication, and contact centre solutions help businesses and partners overcome the complexity of consumer communications.

Infobip has expanded to 65+ offices across six continents. It offers natively built technology with the capacity to reach over seven billion mobile devices and ‘things’ in 190+ countries connected directly to over 650 telecom networks. 

In the past 12 months alone, over 5 billion people have used Infobip’s solutions and services.

The current acquisition builds on Infobip’s ongoing investments and earlier acquisition of US messaging company OpenMarket, which closed in December 2020. Q1 2021 revenue grew 55 per cent year-on-year, a function of continued usage growth in its core business plus contribution from the $300M acquisition of OpenMarket.

Other acquisitions include the developer Shift Conference franchise, acquired in April, and the world’s number one SMS firewall provider, Anam in May 2021.