Agora acquired Easemob for US$53.4 million, a transaction completed in February 2021, structured as all cash.
Easemob operates in Communications APIs / instant messaging & customer engagement, is based in China. On February 28, 2021, Agora acquired 100% of the equity of Easemob from its shareholders for cash consideration of US$53.4 million. China-based Easemob provided instant-messaging APIs and customer-engagement cloud services. Agora recorded US$4.2 million of customer relationships, US$4.0 million of developed technology, and US$53.1 million of goodwill. Easemob’s instant-messaging business aligned with Agora’s PaaS model, but its customer-engagement cloud business had limited synergies and was divested in early 2023.
Agora stated it acquired Easemob to complement its core real-time engagement offerings, adding instant messaging alongside its voice and video APIs.
Instant-messaging APIs are a core building block of real-time engagement, extending Agora’s voice/video PaaS into text-based communication. The instant-messaging business aligned with Agora’s PaaS model; the acquired customer-engagement cloud business proved to have limited synergies. Instant-messaging capability integrated into Agora’s PaaS platform (and its China-based Shengwang operations).
Advisory firms were not disclosed for this transaction.