Proximus : subsidiary BICS completes acquisition of TeleSign

Proximus Group subsidiary BICS, a global provider of international wholesale connectivity and interoperability services, today announced it has closed the acquisition of TeleSign, following the April 25 announcement of entering a definitive agreement to acquire the US-based Communication Platform as a Service (CPaaS) company for $230M. The closing of the acquisition creates the world's first end-to-end CPaaS provider, bridging the market leading TeleSign cloud communications platform with one of the largest global carriers in the world.

TeleSign will continue to operate independently as a wholly-owned subsidiary of BICS with the brand name TeleSign. The company also continues under the leadership of CEO Aled Miles, and adds Daniel Kurgan, CEO of BICS, as the Chairman of the Board.

The financial results of TeleSign will be incorporated in BICS' consolidated results as from 1 November 2017.

Daniel Kurgan, CEO of BICS and Chairman of TeleSign

We are pleased to have brought the TeleSign acquisition to completion and enthusiastic to add TeleSign's deep pool of talent and expertise to the BICS family. This complementary combination accelerates several of our strategies for growth, including expanding our customer base, regional reach and product innovation. We have also broadened our expertise within the cloud communications development lifecycle, and will build and grow TeleSign's established strong position in the fast-growing CPaaS and cloud security markets.

TeleSign has built a strong business in mobile identity, account security and cloud communication solutions and has been the trusted partner to the world's top internet brands or mobile applications looking to engage and secure end-users. The acquisition strengthens TeleSign's push into the high-growth communications platform as a service market. In a recent report, 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 2021.

IDC Worldwide Voice and Text Messaging Communications Platform-as-a-Service Forecast, 2017-2021

Aled Miles, CEO of TeleSign

We're powering a fundamental change in the way businesses engage their users. Our platform enables developers to add real-time communications and security into their applications without the need for complex backend infrastructure. Now backed by BICS' extensive global network and its direct reach to over 700 mobile and fixed operators worldwide - TeleSign's trusted platform is in a class by itself in terms of global reach, network reliability and overall quality of service.

As businesses of all sizes and sectors embrace cloud communications to create innovative new services and transform how they communicate with their customers, this acquisition creates a clear leader in the field to help them achieve their goals. BICS and TeleSign will move forward focused on their respective core businesses while benefiting from immediate and future synergies in areas such as jointly investing in accelerating product roadmaps to speed up time to market and leveraging rich data reservoirs to enrich product offerings.