Pronexus Inc. is a privately held Canadian software company, founded in 1994 (some sources say 1993), based in Ottawa, Ontario. The company specializes in tools for building voice/speech-powered applications and IVR systems. Its flagship product, VBVoice, is a Rapid Application Development (RAD) toolkit integrated into Microsoft Visual Studio for creating inbound/outbound IVRs, auto-attendants, predictive dialers, and self-service voice bots
Origins: Pronexus was founded by Ian Bowles (main developer of VBVoice) in the early 1990s. Pronexus was incorporated in 1993 and launched VBVoice shortly after.
Ownership Timeline: Active Voice acquired a 51% stake in 1997 and full ownership by 2000. Then, in 2001, CEO Gary T. Hannah led an employee buy-out, making Pronexus fully independent.
Closely integrated with Microsoft Visual Studio.
Graphical call-flow editor supporting event-driven IVR, database connectivity, speech recognition, and text-to-speech.
Compatible with Dialogic telephony hardware and SIP/VoIP setups.
Introduced in VBVoice 11.
Enables simultaneous development of voice IVRs and web-based interactive sessions (HTML5 front-end) from the same call-flow design
Predictive dialer, voice verification, directory assistance, banking IVRs, auto-attendants.
Released around 2020, VBVoice 11 brings significant enhancements.
VisualConnect for web-augmented IVRs.
Runtime Manager updates are boosting security and stability.
Automated license updates and a new licensing model.
Auto Updater, audio device configuration through the Announce task.
Mission and Values: Pronexus emphasizes long-term relationships, quality service, community engagement, and treating clients and employees like family
Local Focus: “Give local, buy local, hire local” approach with charitable contributions in its region
Customer Profile: Ranges from small to mid-sized and larger enterprises needing IVR, telephony integration, voice verification, and predictive dialing.
