Governed communications startup LeapXpert Inc. and Cisco Systems Inc. today unveiled an integration that lets Webex users message clients on WhatsApp without leaving the collaboration app.

The integration takes aim at client conversations that compliance teams cannot see. Messaging in Webex has mostly run between colleagues at the same company, and the chats those employees have with clients tend to happen in consumer apps outside anything the employer controls. WhatsApp is the first such network LeapXpert is bringing into the platform, with others to follow.

Because the setup runs on the Webex credentials employees already have, nobody needs a second login to text an outside WhatsApp contact from a desktop or a phone. Each message passes through data loss prevention whichever way it is traveling, so a client’s reply gets the same screening as the employee’s original note. LeapXpert keeps the complete conversation for archiving.

The two companies said the tie-up brings governed consumer messaging within reach of tens of millions of business users, since Webex is used at about 300,000 organizations, nearly every Fortune 500 company included. Cisco has been tightening controls inside Webex itself, adding compliance management and artificial intelligence governance features as part of a June product push.

Avi Pardo, co-founder and chief business officer at LeapXpert, said clients picked messaging apps because that is where they want to be, and firms that cannot govern those conversations are “carrying risk they can’t see.” He called the partnership the company’s way of closing that gap for Webex customers.

LeapXpert has done this before. Slack and Microsoft Teams already work the same way for its customers, as does LeapXpert’s own chat app. Relationship managers can also use Maxen, which the company launched in 2024 to pull generative AI insights out of their client conversations.

The Webex deal comes just over three months after the New York-based startup raised $180 million in a growth round led by Riverwood Capital, with existing investor Portage Ventures also taking part. That money was earmarked for expansion in financial services and government first. Lloyds Bank plc and SoftBank Group Corp. are among the hundreds of businesses on LeapXpert’s customer list.

The integration is available now on the Webex App Hub and requires a Webex license plus a Leap Work account from LeapXpert. The startup is demonstrating it this week at Cisco’s WebexOne conference, which opened today in Austin, Texas, and runs through Thursday.

Photo: Webex