London, 17th January 2023 – Yapster, the leading mobile messaging app used by retailers to communicate with frontline employees, has been acquired by Sona for an undisclosed sum. The deal is expected to accelerate the expansion of Sona’s revolutionary Frontline Operating System across the frontline economy.
Founded in 2015, Yapster is a secure, all-company instant messaging app that enables 1-1 and group conversations and company-wide social sharing. The app is used by household names including BrewDog, Caffè Nero, Krispy Kreme, Next, and Welcome Break and integrates with employee-facing technologies such as labour management, learning and rewards platforms.
Sona has already raised over $10m, led by Gradient Ventures, to supercharge its growth and product development. Sona is a SaaS platform for frontline industries that combines workforce management tools – including scheduling, time & attendance, and absence management, with dedicated features to empower staff and improve employee engagement and wellbeing.
Together, Sona and Yapster serve more than 100,000 users in 5 countries across social care, hospitality, retail and logistics.
Commenting on the acquisition, Yapster Co-founder CEO Rob Liddiard said “All companies are under pressure to accomplish more with less right now, which means doing everything possible to get the most out of employees. Sona, with its backing from Gradient Ventures, is the only technology supplier I’ve seen in my 7 years running Yapster that appears truly capable of delivering the consumer-grade design and AI power customers are now crying out for in order to solve their productivity puzzles. Craig (Yapster Co-founder CTO) and I are both excited to see popular Yapster functionality appear in the Sona platform at an even higher level of speed and slickness over the next year or so.”
Steffen Wulff Petersen, Co-founder CEO of Sona, added, “Yapster and its team are widely respected across the retail sector, and we see extraordinary potential to accelerate Sona’s mission with this acquisition of their expertise. Employees today expect company software to be as powerful and easy to use as their favourite personal apps – and that’s precisely the level of customer experience Sona was founded on and funded to deliver.”
About Yapster
Yapster is a secure, all-company instant messaging app for organisations with frontline (deskless) teams, enabling 1-1 and group conversations and company-wide social sharing. Behind the simple, intuitive UI is a wealth of features and functionality to meet the needs of deskless organisations.
It’s this, combined with an ability to integrate with, and broaden access to, other core systems which means that customers can use Yapster to engage an entire workforce, from frontline to HQ; grow sales by embedding practices that drive commercial performance, and; optimise frontline and people operations and reduce costs. Yapster also helps to keep staff safe, maintain control of company data, and stay GDPR compliant.
For more information visit www.yapster.co.uk or contact [email protected]
About Sona
Sona is a Frontline Operating System (Frontline OS) on a mission to revolutionise how frontline organisations operate. Sona combines the power of enterprise software and AI with the design and usability of the best consumer apps to solve the biggest people challenges in frontline work.
By combining the functionality you expect from any workforce management software – including scheduling, time & attendance, and absence management – with dedicated features to empower staff, Sona’s Frontline OS is built to simplify frontline work for everyone.
That’s why we have the trust of some of the world’s most progressive frontline employers and the backing of world-class investors, including Google’s Gradient Ventures.
Press Contact: Aimen Couchane
Contact Email: [email protected]
