Tech company Intuit has acquired Mailchimp, an email marketing company, for $12 billion. Intuit wants to focus on small and medium-sized companies and says it wants to use Mailchimp for this, among other things.
Intuit is best known in America for its tax software package TurboTax and with Mailchimp in its ranks, the company will offer marketing services for small and medium-sized companies after the acquisition. According to Intuit, two-thirds of new businesses struggle to acquire customers and a quarter find it difficult to retain their existing customers. Half of small businesses would be forced to close within five years, in part because of money problems, the claim goes. Intuit would like to respond to this with Mailchimp’s marketing services.
Mailchimp offers software and services to facilitate email marketing for small businesses. For example, it is possible to compose newsletters in the Mailchimp software, which can then be read on other platforms. Mailchimp started in 2001 as a side project of the likes of Ben Chestnut and only gained a lot of popularity in 2009 when the platform got a freemium option. Mailchimp currently has 800,000 paying customers and generates around $700 million in revenue per year. About eight hundred people work there.
The CEO of Mailchimp reports in the press release of Intuit that the acquisition should lead to the platform being able to use Intuit’s artificial intelligence and thus offer more products and services. The founders had rejected all previous takeover attempts.