Founded in Israel, ZoomInfo (Nasdaq: ZI), which delivers business intelligence to B2B salespeople, said today that it is purchasing Israeli-American startup Chorus.ai for $575 million in cash.
Chorus.ai’s technology is based on natural language processing and enables the extraction of insights from sales staff discussions in order to boost their chances of success. Chorus’s main competitor is Gong.io, an Israeli startup that raised funding last month at a $7.2 billion value, making it the country’s most valuable privately held company.
Chorus.ai, which is currently led by Jim Benton, was founded in 2015 by CEO Roy Raanani, now serves the company’s president, Russell Levy, the CTO, and Micha Breakstone, who has since departed the company.
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Gil Dibner, a former senior partner at Israel’s Genesis and Gemini Ventures, as well as overseas funds Georgian Partners, Redpoint Ventures, and Emergence Capital, have all invested in the company so far.
Zoom Information was founded in 2000 as Eliyon Technologies by Yonatan Stern and Michel Decary, was acquired several times along the way.
First in August 2017 by private equity company Great Hill Partners for $240 million in cash. Later this year the firm bought RainKing. In 2018, it acquired NeverBounce.
In February 2019 Zoom Information was acquired for $800 million by DiscoverOrg which was founded in 2007 by Henry Schuck and Kirk Brown. The two companies merged and rebranded as ZoomInfo. Henry Schuck served as ZoomInfo’s CEO. The same year it acquired Komiko. In 2020, it gained both Clickagy and EverString Technology. ZoomInfo became a public company on Nasdaq in June 2020. The company raised $8 billion and is now valued at $20 billion.
ZoomInfo presently employs 330 people in its Ra’anana development center and is constructing a Tel Aviv office to house Chorus.ai’s Israel team.
Chorus.ai currently employs 200 people, including 40 in its Tel Aviv development office, which will become a part of ZoomInfo’s development center.
Chorus.ai’s technology will be integrated into ZoomInfo’s platform, and its 23,000 customers, providing them with insights into sales conversations.
According to Schuck, “Chorus’ acquisition will accelerate our vision of delivering a modern go-to-market platform that combines best-in-class intelligence with comprehensive data management, workflow, and engagement software, enabling businesses to execute their revenue-generating strategies effectively. Chorus will improve each component of our mission by uncovering new categories of insights, revealing new workflows, and enabling more targeted engagement at scale.”
