Fortaleza Capital acted as exclusive corporate finance adviser to the shareholders of Telecats on the sale of the company to Webhelp Netherlands.

About Telecats: Telecats is the Dutch market leader for speech recognition in customer contact solutions. These solutions include customer identification, call steering, self-service and analytics. The use of speech technology in contact centres has proven to increase NPS (Net Promoter Score) and employee satisfaction, while reducing average handling time and repeat traffic. The Telecats systems are deployed by many clients, handling millions of calls each month. Telecats’ headquarters shall remain in Enschede which will facilitate the anticipated growth over the coming years. The current management and staff have maintained a shareholding interest in the company. Telecats will continue to be led by the current management: Jan Willem Mulder, Martin Spitholt and Wim Luimes.

Wim Luimes, CCO of Telecats about the deal: “I am very enthusiastic about the possibilities for our company. The international portfolio and Webhelp’s ambitions will undoubtedly help us meet our growth ambitions. As experience innovators we could not have found a better partner and look forward to making use of our combined expertise to create a sustainable improvement in customer experience”.

About Webhelp: Webhelp is a global business process outsourcer (BPO), specialising in customer experience and payment management in addition to sales and marketing services across voice, social and digital channels. From 26 countries with a 35,000-strong team, Webhelp focuses on engineering performance improvements and delivering a real and lasting transformation in its clients’ operating models to generate financial advantage. Webhelp partners with some of the world’s most progressive brands including KPN, Vodafone, Michael Kors and Valentino. Headquartered in Paris, France, the company has grown its revenues by more than 250% in the last 4 years. Webhelp is owned by its management and KKR.

Gert-Jan Morsink, CEO Webhelp Netherlands and member of the Board of Directors at Webhelp said: “We are very pleased with this acquisition and the new opportunities this presents to our clients. Our clients can expect to see us drive a new technical agenda for smart solutions with best in class technology paired with our unrivalled human touch. This allows us to further improve the customer experience and reducing the total cost of ownership through smart solutions”.

The press release can be found here (English) and here (Dutch).