Irish telecom company Spearline purchased by Silicon Valley firm

Skibbereen-headquartered customer experience firm employs more than 200 worldwide

Spearline CEO Kevin Buckley and Cyara CEO Alok Kulkarni: The acquisition of Spearline 'brings the most comprehensive global in-country dialling solution that provides mobile and landline dialling assurance in over 80 countries'.
Spearline CEO Kevin Buckley and Cyara CEO Alok Kulkarni: The acquisition of Spearline 'brings the most comprehensive global in-country dialling solution that provides mobile and landline dialling assurance in over 80 countries'.

Irish telecoms company Spearline has been sold to Silicon Valley customer service firm Cyara for an undisclosed sum.

Spearline, which helps call centres to monitor their network and call quality and counts online communications platform Zoom among its clients, is headquartered in Skibbereen, Co Cork.

Founded in 2003 by Kevin Buckley, Spearline employs more than 200 people worldwide, with offices in Cork, Waterford and India.

Cyara said the acquisition of Spearline “brings the most comprehensive global in-country dialling solution that provides mobile and landline dialling assurance in over 80 countries”.

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It said Spearline would also bring “market-leading WebRTC testing products”, which are effectively real-time online communication products. They operate on platforms such as Amazon Connect, Genesys and Zoom.

Spearline bought Israeli company TestRTC in December 2021 in a deal worth more than €10 million, triggering plans for a California expansion. It later said it would almost double its workforce and add more than 100 new jobs as part of its global expansion plans.

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More recently, it acquired Callstats from US based 8x8 for an undisclosed sum in December.

“We are thrilled to join forces with Cyara to bring unmatched excellence to CX [customer experience] assurance,” said Mr Buckley.

“This strategic move enables us to help more customers transform their CX, making every interaction flawless. We are excited for Spearline to become part of this combined powerhouse and look forward to the positive impact it will have on our customers.”

Cyara chief executive Alok Kulkarni said: “To support a remote workforce, organisations are moving their communications platforms to the cloud.

“While this eliminates the complexity of managing the hardware, there is new complexity in testing advanced features that come with these platforms, like AI, video and omnichannel.

“Cyara offers the only CX assurance platform that can address the complexity of these modern communications systems today, and in the future.”

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Spearline’s flagship product, Voice Assure, helps global companies in industries such as technology, travel and banking assure that their customers can reach them across the globe.

Voice Assure places in-country calls to toll and toll-free numbers and measures the audio quality and connectivity of those calls, which enables enterprises to replicate customers’ experiences locally and analyse key performance metrics such as connectivity, audio quality and caller-ID presentation.

Spearline said it wished to acknowledge the “considerable support” of Enterprise Ireland over the past number of years, along with those who played a role in finalising the transaction with Cyara, including solicitors RDJ LLP and finance and tax advisers Deloitte.

Colin Gleeson

Colin Gleeson

Colin Gleeson is an Irish Times reporter