Apr 11, 2024   SOURCE: BusinessWire

OceanSound Acquires Message Broadcast in Partnership with EIP

Message Broadcast (the “Company”), a leading provider of customer engagement software for the electric utility industry, today announced that OceanSound Partners (“OceanSound”), in partnership with Energy Impact Partners (“EIP”), has acquired the Company from LINK Mobility (OB:LINK). The acquisition enables the newly independent Message Broadcast to bolster product innovation, increase investment in sales and support resources, and deliver enhanced value to its customers. Maulik Datanwala has joined the Company as its Chief Executive Officer to lead these efforts.

Founded in 1998, Message Broadcast develops customer engagement software for utilities and other highly regulated industry sectors, including financial services, telecommunications, and healthcare. The Company’s platform automates communication workflows to increase customer satisfaction, decrease operating costs, and ensure regulatory compliance. Through its extensible APIs, modern architecture, and scalable infrastructure, Message Broadcast annually delivers billions of interactions for the world’s leading companies, including approximately 50% of the top 25 electric utilities in the U.S.

“We have followed Message Broadcast’s evolution for many years and have been impressed by its value proposition of modernizing customer experiences in the highly regulated utility industry,” said Ted Coons, Partner at OceanSound. “The Company’s software enables utilities to orchestrate, personalize, and deliver communications at scale and across several use cases, including outages, payments, and energy efficiency. Under our ownership, we anticipate pursuing new investments, partnerships, and acquisitions to create a differentiated and comprehensive platform for customer engagement and additional critical workflows.”

“Changing consumer expectations, weather events, regulatory pressure, and distributed energy trends have underscored how utilities engage their customers,” said Steven Kantowitz, Partner at EIP. “Message Broadcast addresses these increasing requirements with workflows that provide assurance during emergency power outages, which have immense public and regulatory scrutiny. EIP’s investment reflects our commitment to helping our strategic partners invest in innovation. We are excited to support the Company by combining EIP’s utility expertise with OceanSound’s operational capabilities.”

Datanwala joins Message Broadcast with over 25 years of experience scaling operations at enterprise software companies across several functions, including services, sales, and support. Previously, he was COO of Advantive, a specialty manufacturing and distribution software provider. Before joining Advantive, he served for seven years, most recently as COO, at PowerSchool (NYSE:PWSC), a provider of cloud-based software for K-12 education. Earlier in his career, he held progressive leadership roles at SumTotal and Siemens.

“We are delighted to welcome Maulik as the new CEO of Message Broadcast,” said Parin Shah, Principal at OceanSound. “His experience driving customer intimacy, optimizing business operations, and building culture makes him the ideal choice to lead Message Broadcast as it begins its new chapter as an independent company. We are excited to partner with Maulik and EIP and look forward to leveraging our relationships, resources, and expertise to scale and transform the Company.”

“I am honored to lead Message Broadcast and build upon its strong foundation of mission-critical solutions, extraordinary service, and customer-first philosophy,” said Datanwala. “Our customers are essential to our success and our top priority is to enhance their experiences through significant investments in talent and technology. As we embark on this next phase of growth, I am thrilled to work closely with OceanSound, EIP, and our talented team of employees to evolve our capabilities and better serve our customers.”

Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP and Schjødt served as legal counsel to OceanSound. Kirkland & Ellis LLP and Reitler Kailas & Rosenblatt LLP served as legal counsel to EIP.

About Message Broadcast

Message Broadcast is a leading provider of customer engagement software for electric utilities and other highly regulated industry sectors. With decades of domain expertise, Message Broadcast helps shape customers experiences through its omnichannel communication platform. Our software solutions drive increased customer satisfaction, operational efficiency, self-service, and conversion across several communication channels and critical use cases, including power outages, payments, and energy efficiency. For more information, please visit www.messagebroadcast.com.

About OceanSound Partners

OceanSound Partners is a New York-based private equity firm that pursues control investments in technology and technology-enabled services companies serving government and enterprise end markets. OceanSound employs a partnership approach, working closely with founders, entrepreneurs, and executives of middle market businesses to drive transformational growth. For more information, please visit www.oceansoundpartners.com.

About Energy Impact Partners

Energy Impact Partners is a global investment firm investing in companies that are leading the transition to a sustainable future. EIP brings together entrepreneurs and some of the world’s most forward-looking energy and industrial companies to advance innovation. With over $4 billion in assets under management, EIP invests globally across venture, growth, private equity, credit, and infrastructure. For more information, please visit www.energyimpactpartners.com.