CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Fuze (formerly ThinkingPhones), the leader in global voice, video, and collaboration, announced today that it marked the first half of 2016 with record momentum and growth. The company experienced more than 150 percent increase in customer sales compared to the prior year period, 170 percent growth in YOY activations, and nearly 50 percent of business now coming from Europe and Asia Pacific. The growth reflects market demand for a truly unified communications platform that empowers productivity and delivers insights across enterprises.
Fuze added more than 200 customers in the first half of 2016, including: Aquent, Socotec, and BlackLine. These customers are a testament to the company’s unique ability to scale and serve large global enterprises. Fuze’s top ten deals in the first half of 2016 represent a combined $40 million in contract value and 48,000 additional users globally.
“The market opportunity in front of us right now is amazing. Communications software that empowers people to interact wherever and whenever they want is quickly becoming a must-have in today’s modern workplace,” said Steve Kokinos, CEO, Fuze. “We are focused on building seamless communication experiences across voice, video, and collaboration; experiences that people love to use; and experiences that yield huge gains in productivity for their companies.”
In addition to strong customer growth, Fuze marked the first half of 2016 with a completely new corporate brand platform officially uniting itself as Fuze, a name suggestive of its vision: a unified platform that seamlessly “fuzes” voice, video, and collaboration. As part of the company’s rebrand, Fuze also unveiled YOUnified, the largest marketing campaign in its ten-year history, highlighting its approach to helping businesses reduce complexity, increase productivity, and enable secure, always-on communication. Fuze also closed $112 million in financing to expand global operations and support continued investment in innovation, a funding round hailed by The Boston Business Journal as the number one Boston-area venture capital deal of Q1 2016.
Fuze is “quickly becoming an alternative to legacy providers based on its full UCC feature set and its robust global network that supports voice and video around the world,” said Aragon Research CEO and Lead Analyst Jim Lundy in the firm’s most recent “Hot Vendors in Unified Communications and Collaboration, 2016” research report (July 20, 2016).
The first half of 2016 also witnessed expansion in Asia Pacific with the opening of a new Sydney office and three new data centers – Hong Kong, Singapore, and Sydney. Fuze also expanded across Europe, opening new offices in Munich, Zurich, and Madrid, following on the heels of the company’s existing operations in the U.K., the Netherlands, Denmark, and France. The international investments marked a key milestone in Fuze’s mission to dominate the UCaaS market with a global, cloud-based communication platform supported by a world-class infrastructure of data centers.
“Fuze is disrupting the UCaaS market with a communications platform that delivers a truly user-centric experience for the modern workforce,” said Luca Lazzaron, Senior Vice President of International Operations, Fuze. “We are growing rapidly and our continued expansion demonstrates the high levels of demand and adoption for Fuze globally.”
The New England Venture Capital Association’s NEVY Awards honored Fuze as the “Next Pillar Tech Company,” recognizing it as the next tech company best positioned to anchor the region’s future economic landscape and guide the way it does business. CEO Kokinos was awarded the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year® 2016 Award in New England in recognition of his commitment to excellence and extraordinary success in areas such as innovation, financial performance, and personal commitment to the company and communities. Fuze has also been named a finalist for “Company of the Year” and “Best Use of Cloud Technology” as part of the 2016 MassTLC Leadership Awards, as well as a finalist for BostInno’s “Coolest Companies Competition,” celebrating Boston companies with amazing cultures and products.
In May, Fuze announced the general availability of Fuze Global Unmetered calling, a global plan providing customers with unmetered calling to more than 100 countries, free calls between Fuze endpoints, and a more localized calling experience at a predictable cost. With unified service offerings available under the Fuze Global Voice platform, the company can offer unique pricing models and robust calling capabilities worldwide.
“Global Unmetered Calling continues Fuze’s commitment to enabling today’s global workforce by streamlining and transforming the way businesses communicate and collaborate, all with a focus on the end user,” said Michael Affronti, Vice President of Product, Fuze. “Through the Fuze Global Voice platform, we are enabling a more simplified experience, one that also streamlines costs and supports employee productivity.”
Fuze also forged two partnerships in the first half of 2016 to continue delivering its conferencing and collaboration solutions to the market. The company expanded interoperability (IOT) cooperation with Yealink, the global leading unified communication (UC) terminal solution provider, creating compatibility between Fuze Global Voice – the Fuze enterprise communications platform – and Yealink’s T4 series of desktop phones and cordless W52P DECT phone. In June, Fuze also announced it joined the Logitech Collaboration Program (LCP) as an Integration partner in the program’s Cloud Video track. The LCP provides a unique framework for delivering high-quality video collaboration experiences across customer environments.
Earlier this year, Fuze added to its catalogue of research and analysis on the intersection of technology and the workplace with the publishing of The App Generation Report, highlighting how current employees believe the app generation – those aged 15 to 18 years old – will affect work practices. Key insights from the report include:
- Two-thirds of employees say workplace technology needs to catch up with what they use in their personal lives;
- 72 percent of survey respondents say having the right technology when they start work is important;
- Only 2 percent of teenagers want to use a landline, preferring text-based, video and in-person communication
“Fuze continues to lead a revolution in business communication with a platform that truly unifies voice, video, and collaboration applications; with a commitment to putting communication at the heart of work; and, with a passion to put the user at the heart of the experience,” continued Kokinos. “We’re thrilled for all that lies ahead.”
About Fuze
Fuze is a global, cloud-based unified
communications platform that empowers productivity and delivers insights
across the enterprise by enabling simplified business voice
communications, flexible video conferencing, and always-on
collaboration. Formerly ThinkingPhones, Fuze allows the modern, mobile
workforce to seamlessly communicate anytime, anywhere, across any
device. Headquartered in Cambridge, MA, Fuze has additional locations
including New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Ottawa, London, Amsterdam,
Aveiro (Portugal), Madrid, Paris, Munich, Zurich, and Copenhagen and
Sydney. For more information, visit www.fuze.com.
