Dialpad Buys WFM Provider, Surpasses $300 Million in ARR

Unified communications and contact center provider Dialpad announced the acquisition of a workforce management (WFM) provider that a channel partner said will "catapult" the vendor into the enterprise market.

Dialpad on Tuesday said it's buying Surfboard, a three-year-old company whose platform seeks to make customer support teams more efficient. Those WFM capabilities will reportedly integrate into Dialpad's AI Contact Center platform. Dialpad had previously relied on an integration technology partner Playvox for workforce engagement.

"I have always admired how Apple owns every aspect of their products (from the silicon to the hardware to the operating system and beyond) and how that allows them to consistently build beautifully well-designed products that users love. We strive to do the same thing at Dialpad with our fully unified, cloud-based, AI-powered Communications Intelligence platform," Dialpad CEO Craig Walker and Surfboard founder Natasha Ratanshi-Stein wrote in a blog.

Surfboard's Natasha Ratanshi-Stein

Dialpad chief product officer Vincent Paquet said Dialpad and Surfboard will "combine our capabilities to bring customers the very best, AI-native WFM on the market.”

“One of the most time-consuming tasks for any modern team is scheduling meetings and managing a workforce. In our hybrid and platform-powered workforce, enterprises want a single place for all business communications and organization," Paquet said.

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Ratanshi-Stein has at times pushed back on people calling the company a workforce management provider. She previously wrote that the word "management" can imply surveillance of contact center workers and "one-way flexibility."

"We think 'planning' covers what we are doing in a more holistic way: making sure the right people are in the right place, taking into account the needs of both managers and teams, all with the objective of providing the best experience for the customer," Ratanshi-Stein said in an earlier blog.

Ratanshi-Stein on Tuesday said that in the customer service model of the future, humans will power "AI-enabled" work.

“Over the last couple of years, Dialpad has propelled the industry forward in evolving how customer service teams integrate AI," she said. "Surfboard and Dialpad share the philosophy that technology can improve customer outcomes and team efficiency — together, we’re excited to continue building products that allow our customers to do just that.”

Dialpad has now acquired five companies, including Koopid and Kare Knowledge.

Dialpad Acquisition and the Channel

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Paquet in a statement to Channel Futures called the Surfboard acquisition "a significant enhancement to Dialpad's offering for channel partners."

"By integrating Surfboard's workforce management (WFM) capabilities into our AI-powered platform, we're providing channel partners with a more integrated solution for their customers, addressing the critical need for more efficient workforce management in contact centers, which complements our existing AI features," Paquet told Channel Futures. "The combined offering will enable partners to deliver greater value, helping clients optimize performance, reduce costs and improve customer experiences. We're excited about the opportunities this integration with Surfboard creates for our channel ecosystem, and look forward to hitting the ground running."

Jason Price is chief operating officer at Select Communications, an award-winning partner with Dialpad.

Select Communications' Jason Price

"Adding Surfboard's intuitive and granular workforce management tools completes the puzzle and catapults Dialpad into the enterprise space," Price told Channel Futures. "It brings cutting-edge call analytics and granular workforce management into a single view allowing leaders and agents to prepare for peaks to avoid burnout. Now you can plan your work efficiently and use Dialpad's next-level analytics to measure the benefits."

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Dialpad Revenue Surpasses $300 Million ARR

Dialpad in the same announcement said it's bringing in more than $300 million in annual recurring revenue. The company, which Google Voice founder Craig Walker launched in 2011, reports 30% year-over-year growth. More than 40,000 businesses are using the company's platform, which includes unified communications and contact center.

The vendor has framed itself as a "native AI" provider in contrast to UCaaS and CCaaS providers that have partnered with large language models (LLMs).

“Our fully integrated, modern cloud approach allows us to innovate much faster than any of our competitors, and our early investment in real-time AI has positioned us at the forefront of understanding every business conversation," Walker said.

The company is targeting $1 billion in ARR in the next few years, according to Walker.

In comparison, CCaaS competitor Five9, which is 10 years older, is sitting just above $1 billion in annualized revenue run rate. 8x8 reported $697 million in annualized recurring revenue in its fiscal year 2023. RingCentral as of December 2023 was doing $2.33 billion in annualized recurring revenue. NICE drove $2.4 billion in 2023, although that number is total revenue rather than ARR. Zoom reported $2.6 billion in enterprise revenue for its fiscal year 2023.

New Dialpad Execs

Furthermore, the vendor added two execs to its leadership suite.

Former Appify CEO Jen Gran will serve as chief marketing officer. She worked as CMO at Looker and Elastic, and also worked in marketing at Box and Google.

New chief security officer Atit Shah most recently was senior director of engineering and head of security and corporate IT for WePay, which JP Morgan Chase acquired.