McLean speech recognition and translation company AppTek acquires Ignite-Tek

Published November 19, 2019 by Sydney Lake

McLean-based speech technology company AppTek has acquired speech technology and analytics company Ignite Media Solutions — known as Ignite-Tek, with offices in McLean and Tampa, Florida — and appointed Ignite-Tek CEO Mike Ferzacca as chief operating officer, AppTek announced Tuesday.

Financial terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, but Ignite-Tek has raised more than $1.2 billion in revenue for its clients since launching in 2002, according to a statement by AppTek CEO Mudar Yaghi.

Founded in 1990, AppTek has doubled its number of employees in 2019, expanded the use of its platform to more than 1,000 speech annotators this year, and extended support in more than 30 languages.

Ignite-Tek, which built the LucidVueCX platform for cross-channel behavioral and sentiment analysis in marketing, has collaborated with AppTek for several years, Yaghi said. “This combination allows for even faster growth to take place by adding the experienced application-based team from Ignite. Ferzacca will be building on his long history of driving growth and building businesses including Ignite, Simplexity, Cable and Wireless and Xerox.”