MELVILLE, N.Y. — Verint Systems has reached an agreement to acquire Silicon Valley-based KANA Software, a provider of customer service solutions delivered both on-premises and in the cloud, for $514 million.
Verint is a provider of video surveillance and actionable intelligence solutions. The pending purchase from private equity firm Accel-KKR will add key capabilities to the data-analysis software that Verint sells to corporations, allowing them to mine E-mails and Web-chats to gauge customer relations. The transaction is expected to close by the end of April.
The collective solutions from Verint and KANA would enable organizations worldwide to implement a single-vendor suite to help transform customer engagement, according to Verint CEO Dan Bodner.
“We believe that acquiring KANA would allow Verint to offer a holistic customer engagement strategy powered by [the company’s] Actionable Intelligence, providing significant value for our customers and partners,” he says.
KANA was founded in 1996 and taken private in 2009 for $41 million by Accel-KKR, based in Menlo Park, Calif. The company has about 900 customers, including some it shares with Verint. Verint plans to finance the purchase with about $100 million in cash, $300 million in loans and $114 from a revolving credit line.
Jones Day served as legal advisor to Verint. Goldman, Sachs & Co. served as financial advisor and Kirkland & Ellis LLP served as legal advisor to KANA in connection with the transaction.
