"Unisfair is excited" the company announced on Twitter last night, following the agreement for it sale to Chicago-based InterCall. However, the sale of the developer of a software platform for virtual presentations and events was not so exciting for the investors. The company was sold for $35 million, not much compared with the $22 million put into Unisfair by the Sequoia and NVP funds, mainly in the past five years.
As reported by "Globes", Sequoia looks set for a substantial exit in the near future, with the possible sale of Provigent of chip giant Broadcom.
Unisfair CEO Hoang Vuong said, "Unisfair and InterCall have a shared vision to offer industry-leading technology to improve virtual communication and collaboration for companies around the world."
Unisfair was founded in 2000 by Guy Piekarz and Ronen Sobol. This is its second incarnation, after it raised money in the first two years of its life from the BVR and BCS funds, the "Haaretz" group, and from Kenes Group. The company barely survived the bursting of the high-tech bubble, and had to lay off many of its employees. It managed to get back on its feet with the help of the its new investors, two well-respected VC firms from Silicon Valley, and today it has a development center in Ramat Gan, 70 employees, and a fairly successful solution.
Unisfair numbers among its customers giants like IBM, Cisco, and 3M. In 2007, it had revenue of $15 million, though revenue has apparently shrunk since then.
However, the solution, which Unisfair describes as the best available for virtual communication with customers, was not enough. The company's target market virtual conferences did not take off as expected. The result is the acquisition by InterCall for a not especially impressive sum.
The acquiring company intends to consolidate Unisfair's current presence in Israel, where half its employees are based, as a development center, and even to expand it.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on March 2, 2011
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