French software as a service (SaaS) solutions provider Sendinblue said it completed the acquisition of Bulgarian customer analytics and intelligent marketing startup Metrilo and two other foreign companies for $47 million combined. Though the individual amount of the Metrilo deal was not disclosed, according to public information the business of the Bulgarian company is valued at about 2.6 million euro.
Seven-year software
Metrilo was founded in 2014 by Marian (Murry) Ivanov and Peter Iliev as a marketing and sales analytics SaaS platform for e-merchants. The company quickly attracted the attention of local funds and the same year it received its first financial injection, a total of 50,000 euro, provided jointly by Eleven and LauncHub. A year later Metrilo got another 50,000 euro from Eleven. In a third investment round in late 2015 LauncHub, Eleven and Speedinvest injected a total of 325,000 euro with the latest providing the bulk of the amount.
Fresh capital was later invested by business angels. Following all rounds of financing Marian Ivanov holds the biggest share of the business, 35%, and Peter Iliev has 19%.
Metrilo's solution targets small and medium-sized e-merchants. It allows them to study traffic, demand and sales in their e-stores. The software helps profiling customers and analyzing their behavior, so that merchants can optimize their websites or devise personalized e-mail marketing campaigns. Metrilo offers three packages on a subscription basis with monthly rates ranging between $119 and $299.
In Marian Ivanov's words, the company has nearly 1,000 customers and most of them choose the biggest package. Half of the customers are in the United States and some 30% are in Europe.
Growing customer base has resulted in higher revenue. In 2020 the company's sales totaled 1.2 million levs (613,500 euro), up more than 60% year on year. Ivanov says the company will post profit for the first time in 2021. "Business has also increased some 35% on 2020," he added.
The French buyer
Sendinblue is an all-in-one digital marketing platform empowering B2B and B2C businesses, e-commerce sellers and agencies to build customer relationships through end-to-end digital marketing campaigns, transactional messaging, and marketing automation. Crunchbase data show that the company has passed through five investment rounds since it was founded in 2012. The latest and the largest of them took place in late 2020, when the company received 160 million euro.
Together with the Bulgarian startup, Sendinblue has also acquired India-based push notifications application PushOwl and US-based live chat messenger application Chatra. "The acquisitions of the three companies are part of Sendinblue's longer-term vision to expand its marketing capabilities and dive into the growing e-commerce space," Armand Thiberge, CEO of Sendinblue, noted.
The acquisition price of the three businesses is $47 million, Sendinblue said in a news release. In a notification to the Financial Supervision Commission and the Bulgarian Stock Exchange Eleven Capital said the deal valued its 8.6-percent share in Metrilo at some 225,000 euro, which means the price of the entire business is some 2.6 million euro.
Metrilo's founders, as well as the 12-member team in Sofia, remain part of Sendinblue. They will develop the solution as a separate brand under the company's umbrella. Marian Ivanov will stay as general manager of the Bulgarian office and e-commerce product manager of Sendinblue. The Bulgarian team will be gradually expanded as a result of the merger.
French software as a service (SaaS) solutions provider Sendinblue said it completed the acquisition of Bulgarian customer analytics and intelligent marketing startup Metrilo and two other foreign companies for $47 million combined. Though the individual amount of the Metrilo deal was not disclosed, according to public information the business of the Bulgarian company is valued at about 2.6 million euro.
