Redkix, an Israeli based organization will be the fifth Israeli acquisition of Facebook. No financial details were disclosed regarding the deal.
Founded in 2014 by Oudi and Roy Antebe, Redkix is an email messaging startup, which provides an email platform with messaging and calendar features into one application.
Prior to Redkix’s acquisition, Facebook bought Israeli companies including Snaptu, Face.com, Onavo, and Pebbles.
In a long post on Redkix official website, the Co-Founders wrote, “We are excited to announce that we have agreed to be acquired by Facebook, where we’ll join the Workplace team to help connect people and give the world a place to work together. Our current application will wind down.”
Representatives of Redkix in the acquisition were Itay Frishman, Yael Nardi and Avinoam Fachler from the Meitar, Liquornik, Geva, Leshem, Tal law firm, and for Facebook, representatives, including Dana Zur-Neumann, Shachar Porat, and Liat Shaked-Katz, from Herzog Fox & Neeman law firm was present.
Redkix previously raised around $17 million from investors like Salesforce Ventures, Wicklow Capital, and SGVC.
Integration of Redkix features in Facebook’s Workplace
Started in 2016, Workplace is a collaborative platform run by Facebook Inc., which offers social network features in the corporate environment; features including Facebook Groups,
Facebook Messenger, audio-video calling service, and Live video tools.
A Facebook spokesperson said, “We’ll look for ways to integrate Redkix’s technology to help connect people and give the world a place to work together.”
With the acquisition of Redkix, a Facebook spokesperson confirmed that the email messaging app of Redkix will be shut down. Facebook plans to use the Redkix app to build its own communication features inside its enterprise version, Workplace. The integration of Redkix in Workplace service is planned to compete with giant enterprise networks, including Slack, Microsoft, and Google. The major competitor, Slack is a popular messaging service having 70,000 paying customers. On the other hand, around 30,000 businesses use the Facebook’s Workplace service.
