According to census data, just under 40 per cent of startups are thought to survive their first five years. For business phone system provider Ringover, the journey hasn’t been without its challenges, but the company now thrives as an international, ambitious — and constantly growing — business tech leader in the CCaaS and UCaaS space. Recently, the company has been shortlisted for SaaS Company of the Year at the UK Business Tech Awards. Here, Ross Slogrove, UK & Ireland country manager at Ringover discusses the company’s journey and why this nomination is so important.
From tech startup to global comms suite
Ringover was founded by Renaud Charvet and Jean-Samuel Najnudel, who met at ESCP, one of the most prestigious and selective business schools in France. After establishing a common interest in business startups and entrepreneurship, Najnudel approached Charvet about taking on a new venture.
In 2005, after becoming equal partners, Charvet and Najnudel began developing a range of telecom services for small businesses. This included a French version of Telediscount, the affordable international call provider,fax mail and audio-conferencing services, an inbound call management product, as well as a voicemail service for mobile phones. In fact, the two were among the first to develop a service that allows callers to directly leave a voicemail even if the phone is reachable.
Most business phone infrastructures of the time required the installation of physical lines and the onboarding of equipment, which is time-consuming and costly. So, the company wanted to provide a solution to eliminate these upfront costs for businesses. After three years of product development, the first version of Ringover was launched in 2015.
Since then, Ringover has developed into a software as a service (SaaS) publisher that supports companies with a powerful, cloud based Unified Communication as a Service (UCaaS) solution that integrates voice calling, texting, videoconferencing and a complete omnichannel solution. Now, the technology encompasses a range of business-optimising tools that reinvent professional calls, improve business relations, productivity and customer service, with the potential to integrate with over70 leading integrations and helpdesk tools. As a result, over 2 million people now benefit from Ringover’s services.
“Ringover provides a complete communications suite for companies wanting to revolutionise their communication tools and tech stack — with the goal of simplifying communications for businesses of all sizes,” said Slogrove. “Our product also encompasses a range of call analytics features that can be used to monitor and improve productivity, as well as unlimited VoIP calls to over 100 countries, providing a true global reach.
“We wanted to give businesses the ability to transform their calls into a key asset for their customer experience, with minimal effort required on their end,” said Charvet. “We always thought that efforts in tech should be with the developer, and not with the customer. That’s why the platform demonstrates ease for the user with every function.”
Future proofing business comms
Besides being shortlisted for SaaS Company of the Year by the UK Business Tech Awards, Ringover has experienced one of its most successful years to date.
“In the first quarter of 2023, we launched Cadence, a sales prospecting tool that facilitates automatic multichannel prospecting,” said Slogrove. “After the initial success of this, the next product launch was Empower, a conversational AI tool that enables businesses to leverage insights from conversational intelligence to strengthen sales performance and enhance the customer experience.”
The products add to the company’s portfolio of services, demonstrating that business communication is more than just a phone call. Modern day businesses require systems that can assist with easy business management, as well as internal and external communication, but do not make it more complex for the end user.
Most recently, the company secured the equivalent of €20 million funding from three investors in June 2023, which will be crucial to supporting its advances into research and development.
“Since Ringover made the transition from one of the first companies to develop fax, to email, to a fully SaaS based telecoms solution, the business has grown from strength to strength,” continued Slogrove. “Innovation for us is key. With three additional communication tools developed in house and released to the market, Ringover now provides not only a SaaS based telecoms solution, but a unified communications experience that benefits every business function from customer service to sales.
“For Ringover to be shortlisted by the UK Business Tech Awards speaks volumes to the work and effort put in to becoming the best telecoms SaaS solution on the market. To be shortlisted means we are moving forward in our mission to change the way businesses communicate, using innovative technology.
“It is a very proud moment for myself and my colleagues in the UK to be shortlisted for this prestigious award. We are only getting started and we look forward to our continued growth and becoming the leader in SaaS based communications, not only in the UK, but on a global scale too.”
To learn more about Ringover and its business communication solutions, visit https://www.ringover.co.uk/
Email: courtney@stonejunction.co.uk or francesca@stonejunction.co.uk
Blog: https://www.ringover.co.uk/blog
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ringover/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ringoverapp?lang=en
About Ringover: As an international CCAAS solutions publisher, Ringover is the ideal, all-in-one solution for companies wanting to revolutionize their communication (telephone, video, text message, chat, etc.) and transform them into powerful engines of growth. Its features focus on productivity and supervision. The intuitive platform and 70+ business tool integrations (CRM, customer relationship software, etc.) have enabled this SAAS pure player to win over more than 10,000 companies worldwide, including NLDC, Changes UK, Talent.io and the AXA group. A telecom operator since 2005, Ringover has never stopped evolving and adapting to companies’ growing communication needs.
Born out of Paris, and expanded into Lyon, Barcelona, London and Atlanta, the company currently has over 220 employees.