Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) has announced the takeover of Accompany Inc for $270 Million. The deal also includes assumed equity awards.
The backers of this deal include ICONIQ Capital, Cowboy Ventures, Charles River Ventures, and Ignition Partners. Accompany has mobilized funds worth $40 million from these investors.
Artificial intelligence is used by the Accompany to source the biography of people from the news articles and collect general information from the feeds of Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR). The salespeople or executives will use those profiles as the meeting prep dossiers.
Accompany creates a database of relationships at companies and profiles of people with the help of artificial intelligence. It is a personal assistant for the executives and sales persons to gather necessary information and prepare for the conferences and meetings.
Following the acquisition, Cisco will embed the technology of Accompany in its collaboration products. For instance, the profiles of individuals and company introduction etc will be included in WebEx meetings.
The founder and analyst of Constellation Research Inc., Ms. Ray Wang said it is similar to the LinkedIn killer.
The founder and Chief Executive Officer of Accompany, Mr. Amy Chang worked previously as Head (Product) at Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL). He stepped down as an independent board member from Cisco on Tuesday.
Ms. Chang will head the Collaborative Technology Group of the company. The current head of the Collaborative Technology Group will step down to take over charge of Chief Executive Officer at Five9, a Cloud Software Firm.
Mr. Chuck Robbins, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of Cisco commenting on the development said, Chang is an innovative and effective leader from her early career say as an engineer, entrepreneur, and Chief Executive Officer. He is pleased to welcome Chang and the team of Accompany to join Cisco.
He further said both Accompany and Cisco will have a great opportunity to improve machine learning capabilities and the AI in collaboration portfolio and provide an amazing collaboration experience to the customers.
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