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PartnerHero acquisitionCompany announcementExcerpt

Announced October 2, 2024, from San Francisco, alongside Crescendo's $50 million financing. Crescendo acquired PartnerHero, a customer operations outsourcing provider whose clients included Airtable, Khan Academy, sweetgreen, Tom's Shoes, and Udemy. Price and terms were not disclosed. The deal added more than 200 customers and roughly 3,000 human-in-the-loop CX professionals to Crescendo, which had about 20 employees at the time, and extended operations across six continents. Crescendo described the combined business as EBITDA positive with more than $50 million in ARR, and characterized the transaction as the largest ever made in high technology by an early-stage company. Matt Price is chief executive of Crescendo; PartnerHero founder Shervin Talieh joined the Crescendo leadership team. Crescendo shipped its first AI-augmented platform in 2023 and is paid on delivered outcomes rather than for labor, which it contrasts with the deflection-based cost model used across the prior two decades of customer service technology.