BICS enters agreement to acquire TeleSign

BICS, a provider of international wholesale connectivity and interoperability services, has announced it has entered a definitive agreement to acquire privately held TeleSign Corporation, a United States company active in the provision of authentication and mobile identity services to Internet and digital service providers, for $230 million. The acquisition will create a CPaaS provider, bridging the market leading TeleSign cloud communications platform with one of the largest global carriers in the world.

“We’ve been in the driver’s seat of our industry’s transformation, and we’ve built a solid business of over 1.5 billion euro ($1.6 billion) in yearly turnover, with the ambition of bridging the telecom world with the new and innovative communications providers worldwide”, said Daniel Kurgan, CEO of BICS. “By combining the power of TeleSign’s advanced cloud communication platform and customer base with BICS’ market-leading footprint and global reach, we are well positioned to lead the development of one of technology’s most exciting sectors.”

Companies of all sizes and sectors are embracing cloud communications to create innovative new services and transform how they communicate with their customers. As enterprises move to offer the latest and most secure services, harnessing the power of the cloud has become critical to every organization’s digital transformation. In fact, IDC forecasts the worldwide voice and text messaging communications platform-as-a-service market to grow from $867 million in 2016 to $8.2 billion in 20211.

“TeleSign has a strong business with annual revenues of around $100 million built on security and on a pedigree of innovation, with a strong portfolio of global customers,” said TeleSign’s CEO Aled Miles. “Combining our technology with BICS’ global carrier footprint, mobile operator reach and strong experience, puts us in a class by ourselves. Being the industry’s first end-to-end CPaaS means we can offer an unmatched level of business communications as we help organizations grow, engage and secure their end-users anywhere in the world.”