Snapchat to Acquire Israel’s Voca.ai, a Voice Agent Developer, For $70 million

Snap Inc, the parent of Snapchat messaging app, has announced that it is going to acquire an Israeli company, Voca.ai, Voice Agent Developer. The cost of the purchase is estimated to be $70 million. Voca.ai develops voice assistants for the call center.   

To date, they have raised a mere amount of $6 million. Some of its investors include American Express Ventures, Group 11, and Flint Capital. In total, the company employs 35 people and all of them will be integrated into Snap after the acquisition.  

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Dr. Alan Bekker and Einav Itamar founded Voca.ai in 2017 along with a serial entrepreneur who was among the founders of Corrigan. The company has already participated in several programs with financial giants Citi and Mastercard.  

In the third quarter of 2020, Snap’s reports have been favourable with the company stating it had 249 million active daily users and an increase of 11 million users from the last. Besides, their quarterly revenues have also stood at $679 million.   

In 2016, the company acquired Israel-based Cimagine Media, which developed an augmented reality system. Since then, they have operated a development center.  

Voca.ai, on the other hand, has developed technology that seeks to change the call center with the help of AI. For that, they have ingrained inside the Voca Agents the capabilities of human agents with its the latest developments for improved communication.  

 Last October, following the American Express investment, in an interview with Calcalist, Voca.ai’s CEO Einav Itamar said: “More and more enterprises are using virtual agents in their call centers and while people have become more open to interacting with AI, ultimately they want to feel like they’re talking to someone who understands their needs.”