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Toku, Asia Pacific’s leading provider of enterprise-grade cloud communications and customer experience (CX) solutions, has announced its intent to acquire AiChat, a Singapore-based Artificial Intelligence (A)I-powered conversational customer experience (CX) platform.

Upon completion, the acquisition will strengthen Toku’s position as a full-service CX technology firm and enable the company to fulfill its vision of delivering seamless, personalised customer engagement across all channels.

Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. The transaction is expected to close by Q3 2024.

Through this acquisition, Toku will gain AiChat’s industry-leading chatbot and messaging capabilities. When combined with Toku’s existing voice, messaging, and cloud communications suite, customers will benefit from a single, integrated platform to power their entire CX journey.

The expanded capabilities and synergies between the two companies are expected to unlock an estimated 50% revenue growth within the first 12 months.

“The acquisition of AiChat is a natural next step in our mission to be Asia Pacific’s leading customer experience platform,” said Thomas Laboulle, Founder of and CEO at Toku. “Both companies share a vision of using AI to enhance customer interactions and improve contact centre operations. Together, we can deliver even more value to our customers through a unified set of omnichannel solutions.”

Brendon Blacker, Managing Partner of Delivery Hero Ventures, commented: “As a major strategic investor in Toku, we enthusiastically welcome the acquisition of AiChat. This move is a strategic enhancement to Toku’s portfolio, positioning it as an innovator in the region’s CX industry. AiChat’s expertise in conversational AI and regional insights, combined with Toku’s advanced cloud contact centre solutions, effectively amplifies their unique competitive advantages, and signals a deliberate step towards expanding and solidifying their leadership in the market.”

Toku’s Vision: An Integration of Best-in-Class Technologies

Enterprises traditionally face challenges providing unified customer experiences, as they operate across multiple markets and business units with specialised point solutions that are not well-integrated. This can lead to data silos and an inability to leverage insights across the full customer journey.

By coming together, the two companies will offer enterprise clients a single view of their customers with insights drawn from conversations across all channels, faster resolution of issues through seamless hand-offs between chat, voice, and other channels, and more personalised experiences tailored to individual customers at every step of their journey.

Kester Poh, Founder of and CEO at AiChat, said, “We are excited to join Toku. Toku’s commitment to CX excellence mirrors our values, making this acquisition a strategic and natural alignment. This partnership is a key milestone for us, revealing significant opportunities for synergy and growth as leading CX providers in APAC. Together, we aim to simplify customer operations, offering a unified platform for efficient and effective customer experience management.”

Despite the merger, AiChat will continue to operate as a standalone product for customers who prefer a single streamlined solution that delivers the best-in-class AI-powered conversational experience.

(Left to right: Thomas Laboulle, Founder and CEO, Toku; Kester Poh, Founder and CEO, AiChat)

Accelerating Growth through Strategic Acquisitions

The acquisition of AiChat will mark Toku’s second M&A activity in two consecutive years, a strong testament of its solid business fundamentals and consistent upward growth trajectory.

In April 2023, the company acquired customer engagement firm Activeo Singapore, bolstering its capabilities with strategic consulting expertise and large-scale enterprise project delivery. In March 2024, the Financial Times ranked Toku as one of the top 500 high-growth businesses in Asia Pacific.

AiChat employees will begin moving into Toku’s offices as part of the integration, bringing the company’s total strength to 160 dedicated CX professionals. Similar to last year’s acquisition of Activeo, no staff redundancies are expected from the acquisition; both companies are on a path to profitability and expect to tap into each other’s complementary strengths and talents to accelerate growth post-acquisition.

AiChat currently serves a variety of customers in multiple verticals across Southeast Asia including Bayer, M1, Marina Bay Sands, Petron, Thomson Medical, and UPS.

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