Dispatch, the on-demand 3rd party field service orchestration platform, has announced its intent to grow with the acquisition of Youreka. The press release also stated the transaction “also adds significant growth capital”. Does that mean that Vista Equity has invested more money into the company it first invested into in 2018 to join Grandbanks capital?
Youreka is a low-code form building platform built on the Salesforce platform. In acquiring the company, Dispatch hopes to combine the solutions to create a flexible solution to meet the demand of Field Service customers.
The terms of the deal were not disclosed. However, Youreka has raised at least $8.5 million in a Series A funding round that included Boulder Ventures, Grotech Ventures and Salesforce Ventures.
Pat Burns, Dispatch CEO, commented: “Youreka fills a key gap in field service automation. Youreka allows service organizations to build smart, repeatable procedures that allow all technicians to perform their best work. The combination with Dispatch opens new market opportunities and brings us closer to Salesforce.”
Salesforce is taking a close interest
Both solutions are complementary to Salesforce Service Cloud. The acquisition creates a new larger firm. According to LinkedIn, Dispatch has about 138 employees, mainly based in the US and Youreka has 55 employees, again mainly located in the US. This should enable the organisation to improve its coverage of the US once the dust has settled on the integration process. Salesforce Ventures will retain its investment and continue to work with Dispatch.
Paul Whitelam, SVP and GM of Field Service at Salesforce, commented: “Youreka helps our customers elevate service excellence for front line workers. Dispatch extends field service orchestration through third-party service networks. Both are complementary to Salesforce Field Service. We are excited to see the partnership in action.”
A new power in field service
Not only will Dispatch add the low-form forms builder, but it will also gain some notable brands as customers. These include Volvo, Proctor & Gamble, Shell and Diversey. At Shell, Youreka helped build forms to carry out its Health, Safety, Security and Environment (HSSE) Audits. This allowed it to increase the number of safety inspections by thirty-five fold. It added 200 new users with no training requirement. Thirdly it saw a 99% decrease in data processing time with data fed straight into Salesforce.
Dan Bergner, founder and chief product officer at Youreka, said: “Youreka has experienced rapid growth alongside Salesforce, addressing critical capabilities in customer service. The Dispatch platform has tremendous potential to further complement Salesforce Customer 360, and I’m excited to assist with that strategic effort.”
Bergner will become the General Manager of Youreka in the combined organisation, inferring that the two products will remain independent and be business as usual for customers. Bergner added: “More and more industries are relying on independent or hybrid workforces, which creates difficulty around standardizing experiences for both customers and field resources. The Dispatch platform helps service brands overcome these challenges just like we do.”
Enterprise Times: What does this?
This acquisition seems a perfect fit. It brings additional technology, customers and expertise to Dispatch. The firm will now have around 200 employees and the backing for further expansion. As Burns noted: “The acquisition of Youreka represents both an evolution of our existing core product, and the first step towards a combined vision that outpaces the potential market impact and opportunity of each company individually.”
Field Service Management is a competitive sector with Salesforce, IFS, Oracle, and others targeting the enterprise market. It will be interesting to see how Dispatch grows next. Will it continue to focus on its seven industry sectors in the US, or will it start to expand overseas?
