Richmond’s Terazo has gone from a regional software development company to a national player over in the last two years. To gain a foothold in Europe, the company just completed the purchase of Berlin’s c20y.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Terazo specializes in helping companies integrate call-center operations through cloud-based platform Twilio. Both Terazo and c20y are Twilio consulting partners and help companies customize the Twilio platform.
Founded in 2016, Terazo takes advantage of the modern movement within computer science toward open platform access, called application programming interface, or API. Through an API, developers can gain access to data and other areas of a larger platform. The access allows companies to build and customize a platform like Twilio.
Twilio is a cloud-based program that integrates call-center operations. With Twilio, call-center representatives can communicate with customers through phone, email and text messages. As well, representatives do not have to be in a large call center. Twilio allows anyone with a laptop and an internet connection to serve as a customer service representative.
“By using APIs and by taking a programmatic approach and a software-based approach to a contact center, you can create a really good agent experience, which translates into a good customer experience,” Chief Digital Officer Chris Busse said.
Often clients that are looking to use Terazo’s services have an international presence, and Busse said the c20y purchase gives the company leverage to compete with larger, multinational software consulting firms like Deliotte. Terazo has 100 employees and around 40 of them are based in Richmond.
Busse said a strategic investment played a key role in the purchase. Chicago investment firm Tercera, with assistance from a Twilio venture fund, invested $10.5 million in Terazo in 2021. Tercera focuses on firms like Terazo that are building products inside larger platforms. The company helped build Appirio, which specializes in Salesforce integration.
The investors played an important role in advising Terazo on how to grow through strategic acquisition, Busse said.
“They helped us navigate around this acquisition,” Busse said “We would not have been able to do that without their support. The investment wasn't just about the money from a growth capital perspective. It truly was about having some more strategic partners in our corner to help us out.”
Busse declined to give exact sales figures but said revenue doubled in 2021, and the company expects similar results in 2022. It is forecasting strong growth as well in 2023. Terazo was recently named on the Inc. 5000, a list that tracks the fastest-growing private businesses in the country. The local firm ranked No. 2,627 with 217% revenue growth over three years.
“Companies that are using any third-party software are going to be needing to integrate,” Busse said. “In fact, the bigger the company, the more critical it is because they have more data silos.”
The company is moving beyond just the Twilio platform and into building custom software and data solutions. That is one of the reasons it rebranded a few years ago. The company was originally known as API Vista but wanted to utilize a name that allowed it to operate outside of just building API applications. Busse said the company has seen a lot of growth in data analytics, not just API.
The company works in a variety of industries, but Busse noted expertise in health and life sciences, financial services and waste disposal. He said Terazo will move slowly with the c20y integration. The company will operate independently and will help advise Terazo on navigating the European market.