Since the day I founded Lifesize, the mission has always been to deliver more lifelike interactions, personal connections and simplified productivity tools to help our customers navigate the tangled web of business communications over video. Today marks a monumental milestone in that ongoing journey.

I’m delighted to share that Lifesize has merged with Serenova, a leading provider of contact center-as-a-service (CCaaS) solutions. Our combined company will offer a differentiated blend of contact center communications and workplace collaboration solutions purpose-built to aid organizations in creating deeper, more authentic connections between employees and with customers, at every touchpoint across the enterprise.

Marlin Equity Partners, a global investment firm with nearly $7 billion under management, is the financial sponsor behind the merger and will further invest to grow the combined business. We are thrilled to have the Serenova and Marlin teams on board, and I look forward to working closely with our expanded team as CEO of the new company. The opportunity ahead of us is vast, and what we have in store is incredibly exciting.

Serenova logo plus Lifesize with a lady on a video conference call in the background

Creating Better Communication Experiences

Just as our opportunity is vast, so too is our charter. In response to undercurrents of distributed teams and remote work, cloud-delivered IT services and apps, and omnichannel engagement over 5G networks and mobile devices, business communications everywhere – from the contact center to the meeting room to the mobile workforce – desperately need a refresh. Whether they’re occurring between colleagues, customers or external partners, professional communications beg for a more personal, authentic touch. We firmly believe that can be best delivered through high-definition experiences that go far beyond pixels on a screen. Our intent is to deliver solutions and experiences that result in greater workforce productivity, more collaborative teams and increased customer retention.

Given Lifesize’s storied history of pushing the bounds of video quality and innovation as well as Serenova’s emergent leadership in cloud contact centers, we are uniquely positioned to be the sole provider of those high-definition experiences. Whether enabling retailers’ contact center agents to give more personalized instructions via video to customers asking for technical assistance or establishing the technical foundation for the next generation of healthcare telemedicine services, the possible use cases and digital transformations that spring forth from these more personal, HD experiences are endless. However, they all accrue to assisting organizations in moving at the speed of modern business, powered by agents and employees who are more deeply connected, work more collaboratively and support more engaged, happy customers.

Suited for the Enterprise

Lifesize and Serenova have long had quite a few commonalities in our approach and the way we’ve built our respective platforms and businesses, including a firm commitment to delivering enterprise-grade solutions for our customers and partners. We will continue that heritage with the new company, serving a shared 10,000 subscription customers worldwide, many of which are of enterprise size and scale.

One of those core enterprise-grade tenets is being cloud-first, which we both achieve through AWS infrastructure and a modern microservices architecture. Today, less than 20 percent of contact centers have been fully migrated to the cloud, but the majority of contact center decision makers are already planning such migrations within the next couple years. Our combined company will provide global scalability plus market-leading reliability and uptime for organizations transitioning mission-critical communications to the cloud.

Moving Forward Together

To all of our customers and partners around the world: We will continue earning your business every day and we remain committed to continually innovating on your behalf. To learn more about the news, read today’s press release and watch the video address below from myself and Serenova CEO John Lynch.