Houlihan Lokey Advises Persistent Systems
Houlihan Lokey is pleased to announce that Persistent Systems (Persistent) has acquired Starfish Associates (Starfish). The transaction was publicly announced on July 3 and closed on August 1, 2024.
Starfish’s automation platform excels as an intelligent integration hub and workflow engine, facilitating seamless connections across a myriad of business applications and communication systems. It enhances multi-vendor communication management through automation with platforms such as Amazon Connect, Avaya, Cisco, Genesys, and Microsoft Teams. In addition, it integrates with key business applications like ServiceNow, Workday, and Microsoft Active Directory to streamline workflows and operations.
This acquisition combines Starfish’s innovative platform with Persistent’s leading AI-powered automation capabilities and strong customer base, enabling significant optimizations, enhanced workflow efficiencies, and agile responses to dynamic business environments.
“Our journey of industry-leading growth continues, fueled by strategic expansion and a deep understanding of our clients’ needs. The integration of Starfish Associates’ platform greatly enhances our unified communications and contact center management offerings as this industry undergoes significant disruption on the back of AI-led innovations. This acquisition paves the way for us to support our global clients to unlock the full potential of these innovations in their contact centers. We are excited to welcome Starfish Associates to the Persistent team and anticipate great success in scaling our operations with Robert, David, and their team,” said Sandeep Kalra, Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director of Persistent.
“Since our inception, Starfish Associates has been dedicated to enhancing enterprise management of unified communications and contact centers, always aiming to elevate customer and employee experiences. Joining forces with Persistent presents a new chapter for us, on one hand augmenting our capabilities in integration, automation, and AI-driven contact center transformation, and on the other hand, giving us access to Persistent’s strong customer base,” said Robert Hankin, Co-Founder and Partner of Starfish.
Houlihan Lokey served as the exclusive buyside financial advisor to Persistent.
Houlihan Lokey’s IT Services team is among the most active M&A advisors in the market, having closed 45+ IT services transactions in the past 24 months. This most recent transaction further strengthens Houlihan Lokey’s leadership in the enterprise applications universe and highlights continued momentum and leadership in its core vertical, which includes cloud/data and analytics, digital engineering, enterprise applications, and managed and security services.
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