This Dragons' Den investor has just sold his Galway business to a US multinational
Barry O’Sullivan’s Altocloud has been snapped up by customer services giant Genesys.
GALWAY-BASED CUSTOMER ANALYTICS startup Altocloud has just been acquired by a US multinational for an undisclosed amount.
The tech firm, headed up by Dragons’ Den investor Barry O’Sullivan, uses artificial intelligence to inform companies in real-time about how customers use their platform.
O’Sullivan’s business has been bought outright by US-based firm Genesys, a large player in the customer experience sector with over 100,000 customers in 100 countries.
Speaking to Fora, O’Sullivan would not confirm the amount Genesys paid to acquire Altocloud.
However, he said that the company will stay in its Galway base with commitments made by Genesys to grow the Irish development team.
In a blog post on the company’s website, O’Sullivan wrote the firm had a lot of “strategic interest from larger companies, but it was quickly clear to us that Genesys is the ideal match”. He also thanked the firm’s investors and advisors.
“Three people really rolled up their sleeves and helped – our board member Maurice O’Gorman, lead advisor Kara Wilson and Pat Clune, Enterprise Ireland development advisor.
“This is not the end of the Altocloud journey – we are moving to a new and exciting phase.”
Altocloud was founded four years ago by O’Sullivan and engineers Dan Arra and Joe Smyth and employs 25 staff in Ireland.
It is currently based out of the Portershed tech hub in Galway city centre and also has a smaller office in Silicon Valley.
The most recent set of accounts for Altocloud showed the firm made a loss of €514,000 during 2016, which pushed accumulated losses at the firm past the €3 million mark.
As part of the acquisition deal, Altocloud’s products will be integrated into Genesys’s offering, which is used by a number of notable international firms such as Ticketmaster and PayPal.
