LivePerson to Acquire Kasamba, Inc.

LivePerson to Acquire Kasamba, Inc.

LivePerson, Inc. (Nasdaq: LPSN), a provider of online conversion solutions, today announced an agreement to acquire Israel-based Kasamba, Inc., a leader in live expert advice delivered online via real-time chat to consumers. Under the terms of the agreement, LivePerson will acquire the outstanding common stock of Kasamba and assume all of its outstanding options for total consideration of approximately $40 million, comprised of $9 million in cash and approximately $31 million in stock.

The acquisition of Kasamba, combined with the recently announced launch of LivePersonalShoppers.com, will accelerate LivePerson’s expansion into the direct-to-consumer market. This purchase underscores LivePerson’s commitment to expand its global presence by offering a personalized, human experience to the millions of consumers who are looking for live help online and want expert advice in real time.

Kasamba’s thousands of experts sell their knowledge via real-time chat to the more than 1 million monthly visitors to Kasamba.com. Kasamba has experts in dozens of categories, including personal counseling and coaching, computer services, education and tutoring, health, business and finance. Currently, Kasamba’s business model is based on receiving a portion of the gross expert fees. In 2006, the experts generated approximately $20 million in gross fees of which Kasamba received approximately $7 million, an increase from approximately $8.4 million in gross fees and approximately $2.7 million in net revenue to Kasamba in 2005.

LivePerson currently provides live chat and customer service software to companies such as EarthLink, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, Qwest, Verizon, Orbitz and The Home Depot, and supports more than 50 million consumer chat interactions annually across its existing customer base. LivePerson’s presence in the direct-to-consumer market will solidify its position as a leading provider of real-time solutions for both businesses and consumers.

Kasamba offers a turnkey solution for professionals offering expert advice online in real time via chat. Experts provide their services via chat for a negotiated fee to thousands of consumers each month. Kasamba’s commission- based business model generates revenue from each paid consumer-to-expert interaction.

“This acquisition represents our commitment to build a direct to consumer service to positively impact our entire business,” said LivePerson CEO Robert LoCascio. “By directly empowering the consumer to drive demand for real-time chat, we hope to increase the rate of adoption of our services. We believe this will create a unique value proposition for our customers and further differentiate us from our competition.”

“Being part of LivePerson will enable us to provide a more complete offering of real-time services to our growing customer base and to expand into new market segments. We share the LivePerson vision of consumer-oriented services and look forward to expanding our opportunity together,” said Inon Axel, Kasamba’s CEO.

Mr. Axel and Kasamba President Arthur Fuhrer will continue in management roles following the completion of the acquisition.