Young entrepreneur sells Fonebox to start VC company

Young Queensland entrepreneur Jonathan Grives has sold Fonebox, the company he founded when he was a teenager, to a major multinational technology company.

The terms of the transaction have not been disclosed, but industry sources indicate that the deal is worth around $30 million — making it one of the biggest buyouts in the history of Queensland’s telecom sector — and the buyer is global cloud, unified communications and digital media company j2 Global.

Grives founded Fonebox when he was just 18 as an inbound business-to-business telecommunications company.

Fonebox services 13, 1300 and 1800 numbers, including call routing, tracking and phone answering services, for some of Australia’s largest brands from its Brisbane contact centre and headquarters.

“Today marks a bittersweet day as I announce the acquisition of Fonebox. Anyone that has sold a business will understand it’s an emotive experience,” Grives said.

“My team — both present and past — have made Fonebox the success that it is and I say thank you to them all.”

He said that over the past nine years, Fonebox has employed 158 staff, processed 80 million calls and answered 2.5 million calls on behalf of clients.

Grives said while his experience shows that age is no barrier to business success, being young did mean working harder.

“Age wasn’t something I could change so I had to prove that I was mature enough to be trusted with a really important part of people’s business — their incoming calls. It took a lot of hard work and relationship building to gain their trust,” he said.

Grives said that perseverance and determination have been the keys to his success. He now plans to establish his own venture capital fund to allow others to follow in his footsteps.

“I see my purpose, as a Brisbane young entrepreneur who has had one of the most successful business exits at the age of 27, to facilitate and help others to do the same.”