Besides having a catchy, yellow name, Kelowna-based Bananatag has become part of a global internal communication software powerhouse.

Bananatag has merged with Staffbase of Germany in a multi-million-dollar deal to form the largest company of its kind in the world.

"This is an amazing day for Bananatag," said CEO and co-founder Corey Wagner.

"We couldn't be more excited to take this giant leap forward for our customers and the internal communication field."

Now that we've mentioned international communications several times, what exactly is it, you may ask?

Well, for Bananatag's part it's a platform for companies to design, send, track and measure all the emails it sends to employees, which includes who the email is sent to and why, if it was received and opened and how long it was opened.

As well, Bananatag's offering allows workers to send and schedule messages on Microsoft Teams and Slack.

Over 600 companies worldwide used Bananatag's software, including IKEA, Samsung and H&R Block.

Bananatag is considered one of Kelowna's brightest high-tech stars for creating ingenious software that's used internationally, being part of the tech cluster in the Innovation Centre in downtown Kelowna and being named one of the fastest-growing tech companies in North America by accounting and consulting giant Deloitte.

Staffbase brings to the table a smartphone app used to access corporate information wherever the worker is.

Staffbase's customers include Audi, DHL, Audi, UC Health and Iron Ore Company of Canada.

Bananatag is particularly strong in North America, Staffbase in Europe.

With complementary software and different geographical prowess, the merger of the two companies forms the biggest and fastest-growing employee communication software firm to serve workers by both email and app.

Bananatag has 47 employees in Kelowna and 76 working at offices and remotely in Vancouver  and across the country.

Staffbase has 327 employees at its headquarters in Chemnitz, Germany and nine other locations across Germany, London, England, New York and Amsterdam.

The joint company is the biggest of its kind in terms of team size, revenue, number of customers at 1,000 and projected growth.

The merged entity will keep an office and employees in Kelowna, but unfortunately the memorable Bananatag name will eventually become Staffbase.

"We'd been chatting about a partnership for a couple of years and then Staffbase approached us with the merger," said Wagner.

"In keeping with these COVID times, the whole deal was worked out on Zoom."