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Everbridge acquires Unified Messaging Systems


Posted: 13th April 2018 08:40

Everbridge, Inc., the global leader in critical event management and enterprise safety software applications to help keep people safe and businesses running faster, has announced the completion of its acquisition of Unified Messaging Systems ASA ("UMS"). Based in Oslo, Norway, UMS provides a unique countrywide mobile population alerting system globally and is also one of the leading critical communications providers in Europe. By uniting UMS’s proven mobile alerting, crisis management, and notification applications with Everbridge’s market-leading Critical Event Management (CEM) software platform, the acquisition creates an unparalleled set of solutions to help customers assess threats, initiate and manage incidents, and notify stakeholders from a local neighborhood or building to a countrywide level, and across the globe. 

UMS’s Population Alerting System (PAS) provides 2-way SMS broadcast capabilities to an entire mobile population. To accomplish this, UMS has the unique ability to message the mobile phones of anyone connected to a carrier’s cell towers. The company also provides Location-Based Alerting technology which enables municipalities to geographically pinpoint where to send notifications within a region. This capability is equally applicable for national and global companies who want to reach local and traveling employees, automating the alert by preferred language. UMS’s PAS systems are deployed in a number of countries, providing countrywide alerting to Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, the Bahamas, Singapore, Greece, and Cambodia, as well as in the city of Kiev, and some of the largest states in India. 

As one of the leading mass notification providers internationally, UMS significantly increases Everbridge’s international reach. UMS supports, for example, over 1,200 customers in Northern Europe and reaches over 500 million people globally via population alerting. Its crisis and emergency management product Previstar is used for planning and resource management purposes by major public safety agencies in such places as Virginia, Georgia, Massachusetts, West Bengal in India, as well as by the U.S. Navy. Previstar will considerably enhance Everbridge’s crisis management capabilities.

“We are thrilled to welcome UMS to the Everbridge family, accelerating our international growth and creating the most comprehensive Critical Event Management platform for business, state and local government, and now entire countries,” said Jaime Ellertson, CEO of Everbridge. “UMS provides Everbridge with a passionate and customer-focused team of experts, differentiated technology, and a shared mission to keep people safe and businesses running during a critical event.” 

Together, Everbridge and UMS form a global team of over 700 employees dedicated to delivering innovative, differentiated solutions for critical event management. The collective entity expands Everbridge’s international expertise in business continuity, emergency response, and critical event planning, while providing UMS customers access to Everbridge’s Critical Event Management platform for improved messaging scale and delivery across the world.

“Everbridge’s extensive technical capabilities, the breadth of its offerings, and the experience of its 
global team made for a natural fit with UMS,” said Espen Gylvik, Chief Executive Officer, UMS. “We look forward to aligning with the market leader to provide critical services and innovative communication solutions to make a significant difference in people’s lives.” 

The acquisition values the total share capital of UMS at approximately NOK 268 million, or approximately USD $33.6 million.

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