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Fresh off Silver Lake acquisition, ServiceMax buys collaboration startup Zinc
ServiceMax Inc. today announced that it has picked up collaboration startup Zinc Inc. in its first acquisition since moving under the wing of Silver Lake Partners LP.
The private equity firm, which is known for its investments in major enterprise technology players such as Dell Technologies Inc., bought ServiceMax from General Electric Co. late last year.
GE remains a minority stakeholder with a 10 percent ownership interest. The value of the deal wasn’t disclosed, but it was likely quite substantial given that GE had originally paid $915 million to acquire the company back in 2016.
ServiceMax sells cloud services that help organizations such as mobile carriers manage their field operations. The company’s flagship offering, ServiceMax Field Management, centralizes the task of dispatching engineers to troubleshoot technical issues and install hardware. It also provides the ability to give technicians the information they need to know about each assignment via a companion mobile app.
San Francisco-based Zinc offers a mobile communications service that enables field personnel to collaborate on their work. Besides the usual messaging, voice and video features, the app includes a number of niche capabilities geared specifically toward field operations.
One such capability is Zinc’s Hotline Groups mechanism. It enables workers to bypass their company’s internal support system when they require urgent assistance and directly contact the specific team best equipped to help them with the task at hand. Another specialized capability, Push to Talk, is essentially a virtual walkie-talkie that allows the user to communicate with a large number of colleagues at once.
It’s not entirely surprising that Zinc is the first company ServiceMax has acquired in the wake of its split from GE. Zinc is led by Stacey Epstein, who served as ServiceMax’s chief marketing office until 2016, and the firms offer extensive integration between their products. Technicians can start Zinc conversations directly in the ServiceMax interface to collaborate on projects.
The terms of the deal were not disclosed. Zinc has raised $16 million in funding from GE Ventures, early ServiceMax investor Emergence Capital, Hearst Ventures and Charles River Ventures.
Photo: ServiceMax
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