Evan Spiegel, CEO, Snap. Photo credit: Hubert Burda Media, licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Snap, the parent company of the popular Snapchat app, has acquired Voca.ai, an Israeli startup that builds AI-based voice assistants for customer support and call center services. The acquisition was earlier reported by TechCrunch, which pegs the price at $120 million, split into $70 million in cash and $50 million in stock. With the acquisition, Voca.ai’s team of 40 will be joining Snap.

A $120 million price marks a big win for Voca.ai, which is known to have raised just $6 million in outside funding. Among investors in the company who have likely clinched big returns from its sale to Snap include Flint Capital, Lool Ventures, and financial services firm American Express.

Voca.ai is based out of Israel but also has an office in New York. The company builds AI-based voice assistants that it says was powering 2 million monthly calls as of October last year. Snap, its acquirer is a major social media app so could put well to use Voca.ai’s voice assistant. It’s, however, not clear what the company intends to do with Voca.ai and if it’ll continue providing its service to other customers.

Snap has been on a tear recently and reported $679 million in revenue in its most recent quarter, up 52% year-over-year. It’s possible that the social media company is looking to diversify its business and sees Voca.ai as a way to do that. 

This isn’t the first time Snap is acquiring a startup from Israel, as the company acquired another Israeli startup, the augmented reality platform Cimagine, for a reported $30 million+ back in 2016. So far since its inception, Snap has now acquired 18 companies with the inclusion of Voca.ai. A major percentage of the company’s acquisitions have been in the augmented reality and artificial intelligence space.

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