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Jul 09

Ribbit Aquired by British Telecom

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TechCrunch reports today that BT has acquired Ribbit for $55 million to build GrandCentral competitor. The article states that the company has denied the rumors, but wouldn’t comment on wether or not the merger discussions were occuring or not. Given that Ribbit recently raised $13 million dollars, it’s interesting that they exited so early, and if the more than three times valuation seemed to be enough of a win for the investors and management. In any event, good job to all involved.

The story goes on to state the the primary reason behind the acquisition is to build a GrandCentral competitor. I say bullsh*t:

  1. You could replicate GrandCentral for way less than $55 million. All praise due to Craig Walker and his team, but a web integrated find-me-follow-me application doesn’t take $55 million to build.
  2. I’m a GrandCentral user, and really enjoy it, but GrandCentral has been languishing for the past year. There’s no sense in competing with something that isn’t winning.
  3. It doesn’t pass Occam’s razor: there’s a simpler reason why BT would buy Ribbit. If BT recognizes that their Enterprise customers will deploy communications enabled business process applications, and Ribbit has some 3,000 developers already, and it looks like Adobe Flash has more traction than (ick) SOAP… you get the picture.

Congratulations to Crick, Don and the crew at Ribbit. Well done.

10 Responses to “Ribbit Aquired by British Telecom”

  1. Ribbit acquired by British Telecom | Web 2 Voice Says:
    July 9th, 2008 at 2:11 pm

    [...] was bought by Google, and has been languishing on the sidelines since. Thomas Howe things that is hogwash, and I agree with him.  An excerpt: It doesn’t pass Occam’s razor: there’s a simpler reason [...]

  2. Sean O Sullivan Says:
    July 9th, 2008 at 8:42 pm

    In short: I’m with you Thomas. It’s not about GrandCentral (although that may have been an easy headline for the original article, which I understand). BT are *very* much in the game of figuring out how to open their network, extract value from these two-sided business models (see: Martin Geddes and Telco 2.0) and push on with their enterprise focus especially (where, as you’ve often highlighted, there is so much potential for either adding value or stripping cost if voice can truly be a first class citizen in the process).

    i’m just surprised that Ribbit went from new-kid-on-the-block to Acquired-by-BT in such a short time! As an entrepreneur, I have to say: hats off! :-)

  3. Aniq Rahman Says:
    July 16th, 2008 at 5:26 pm

    Seems like this deal didn’t go through just yet. In any event, $13 MM isn’t their valuation (they might have given up 60-80% for that $13MM – who knows)

  4. HeavyLight Says:
    July 29th, 2008 at 7:27 am

    The deal has now been confirmed by BT at $105 million – considerably more than the previously reported $55m.
    BT press release: http://bit.ly/3c8et1

  5. Thomas Howe » Now the Real Ribbit Comes Forth Says:
    July 29th, 2008 at 10:30 am

    [...] As I reported a few weeks ago, Ribbit has indeed been sold to BT, and as many thought, it wasn’t for 55 million. It was for $105 million… which makes complete sense to me.  I know I’m going to cross over into the report I’m writing again if I’m not careful, but here’s the math that makes that work: [...]

  6. Official: Ribbit acquired by BT for $105 million | Web 2 Voice Says:
    July 29th, 2008 at 10:31 am

    [...] can be found here. I discussed this previously here, mainly agreeing with Thomas Howe’s take.  But in reading the press release, it sounds as if BT paid $105 million for easier access to [...]

  7. Telco 2.0: Guest post: Why Ribbit is worth $105m to BT Says:
    July 31st, 2008 at 9:20 am

    Kramer auto Pingback[...] As I reported a few weeks ago, Ribbit has indeed been sold to BT. The selling price — $105 million — has caused some surprise. However, it makes complete sense to me.  Here’s the math that makes that work: [...]

  8. TM Forum Community - Blogs Says:
    August 1st, 2008 at 12:07 am

    Kramer auto Pingback[...] As I reported a few weeks ago, Ribbit has indeed been sold to BT. The selling price — $105 million — has caused some surprise. However, it makes complete sense to me.  Here’s the math that makes that work: BT has relationships with several thousand global companies in Britain and beyond: British Airways, the BBC, HSBC, Barclays, Royal Dutch Shell, BP, RBS…  you get the picture.  Each of these companies will one day demand (if not already) that their telecom provider offer APIs so that they can integrate their business process with the communications infrastructure.  Thus, the BT Web21C APIs are born.As a round number, assume that each large company has between twenty and forty large applications that require integration and management. We can count six areas that all have right off the bat : CRM, ERP, HR, logistics, inventory management, IT automation. No stretch to imagine that each area has several applications in it, or different divisions have different needs, etc.Again, as a round number, business efficiencies of 20% are commonly seen in CEBP applications, providing ample reason to integrate communications systems with enterprise applications.So, from simple multiplication, we have several thousand companies with 20 to 40 applications each, giving us about 30,000 CEBP applications for BT’s large customer base alone.From a world-wide market perspective, just multiply that number times the number of large carriers. [...]

  9. VoIP Watch: Did Ribbit Get Bought? Says:
    September 14th, 2008 at 7:12 am

    Kramer auto Pingback[...] TechCrunch and others are speculating that BT purchased Ribbit. [...]

  10. Thomas Howe » Ribbit Aquired by British Telecom Says:
    December 1st, 2008 at 1:52 pm

    Kramer auto Pingback[...] written by Thomas Howe, posted on July 9, 2008 at 9:58 am, filed under Lead Stories. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment or leave a trackback: [...]

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