Five9 has quickly stepped in to shut down rumors that it is “weighing options for a sale.”
Bloomberg News broke the news late on Monday, citing “people familiar with the matter.”
Moreover, Bloomberg seemed to hint that Zoom may have provided one such sales option by reaching out to the enterprise communications giant for comment.
Yet, Five9 swooped in yesterday, releasing the following statement:
Although Five9’s general policy is not to comment on market rumors or media speculation, Five9 was approached with such an opportunity; however, Five9 is not pursuing any such acquisition.
Interestingly, Five9 didn’t confirm that Zoom had approached them. The “opportunity” may well have come from another company.
Of course, Zoom had agreed to acquire Five9 in 2021 for $14.7BN. Yet, a lot has changed since then.
Most significantly, Zoom has built and rapidly innovated on its own contact center platform, with hundreds of businesses already deploying it.
Moreover, it acquired Solvvy last year, bringing native conversational AI into the fold. So, Five9’s intelligent virtual agents (IVAs) wouldn’t fill a gap in its offering.
Nothing this Dave Michels, Lead Analyst at TalkingPointz, said in a video posted on X:
No longer do they fit together like a jigsaw puzzle; there is more of an overlap.
As such, the ship has likely sailed for Zoom, and seemingly for other potential buyers too, with Five9 not pursuing any such acquisition.
That is not a surprise. After all, Five9 has momentum.
Indeed, Five9 is one of the few CCaaS vendors to consistently post double-digit revenue growth, record a jaw-dropping NPS score of 85, and break the leader square of the Gartner Magic Quadrant.
It even opened up a new development center in Portugal earlier this year, doubled down on its global expansion ambitions, and snapped up Aceyus to support its CCaaS growth.
Indeed, it seems well-placed in the contact center market, as Mike Burkland, Chairman & CEO of Five9, confirmed during a recent earnings call:
I’m pleased to report that our pipeline for strategic deals doubled, year-over-year… We [also] had a record number of enterprise and strategic RFPs (requests for proposals) in the third quarter, which increased 66 percent year-over-year.
Of course, Five9 could leverage its stronger market position to push for a sale. Yet, there is seemingly no intention – despite the approach from the mystery CX player.
If Not Zoom, Which Company Tried to Snap Up Five9?
As above, it seems unlikely that Zoom made the approach. Yet, Five9 has confirmed one business did make the move to snap up one of the CCaaS industry’s biggest fish.
Moreover, with Five9’s significant contact center footprint, only an enterprise tech juggernaut is likely able to put up the funds.
Microsoft is one possibility. However, it already has three separate contact center propositions: Dynamics 365 for Service, the Digital Contact Center Platform, and certified Teams integrations. A fourth would add even more confusion.
Some may suggest Google. Yet, it has now built a fully-fledged platform, partnering with UJET, a smaller – albeit up-and-coming – CCaaS business. So, if it didn’t acquire UJET, why would it consider acquiring Five9?
Meanwhile, AWS has a leading solution of its own, and Cisco just spent $28BN on Splunk.
Then, there is Salesforce. Although it seems reluctant to directly compete with leading CCaaS vendors, instead preferring to tighten up their integrations with Service Cloud. Its recent co-innovation with AWS and Genesys exemplifies this.
That leaves Salesforce’s CRM rivals – SAP or Oracle – as the other possibilities.
Of course, there are many others in this – or the ERP – space that could plot such a move. But they’re smaller and unlikely to generate the necessary finances.
After all, Five9 is now a well-known, highly-regarded name in the CX space – and that will not change anytime soon.
