Global tech firm Intuit has announced that it will acquire customer engagement and marketing platform MailChimp for a staggering $12Bn as it continues to strive to become an “AI driven expert platform”.
The acquisition will allow Intuit to access MailChimp’s 13 million global users and help it deliver on the vision of an innovative, end-to-end customer growth platform for small and mid-market businesses, allowing them to get their business online, market their business, manage customer relationships, benefit from insights and analytics, get paid, access capital, pay employees, optimize cash flow, be organized and stay compliant, with experts at their fingertips. The company had set up two major goals: become the center of small business growth; and to disrupt the small business mid-market, and MailChimp’s acquisition will help Intuit grow closer to achieving these goals.
MailChimp started small, offering a platform for email marketing solutions to businesses around the world. However, over time, it became a hub for customer engagement and marketing automation fueled by a powerful, cutting-edge AI-driven technology stack.
Today, it has over 2.4 million monthly active users, 800,000 of which are paid. The company claims that it has 70 billion contacts, and 250+ rich partner integrations, and that it fuels 2.2 million daily AI-driven predictions.
This goes along perfectly with Intuit’s business model, which helps companies around the world solve their financial challenges. It already operates platforms like TurboTax, QuickBooks, Mint and Credit Karma, which have allowed it to reach 100 million customers.
Customer acquisition still remains one of the biggest problems faced by businesses around the world. Intuit claims that over 25% of companies struggle to retain existing customers, yet almost three-quarters of small businesses have not adopted a customer relationship management solution. Moreover, 84% percent of small businesses use pen and paper or spreadsheets to reconcile their inventory across channels and 50% of small businesses fail within the first five years due in large part to cash flow challenges. The company believes that MailChimp’s offering can help users with this problem.
“Over the past two decades, we’ve vastly expanded and evolved Mailchimp’s platform to help millions of small businesses around the world start and grow,” said Ben Chestnut, CEO and Co-founder of Mailchimp. “With Intuit, we’ve found a shared passion for empowering small businesses. By joining forces with Intuit, we’ll take our offerings to the next level, leveraging Intuit’s AI-driven expert platform to deliver even better products and services to small businesses. This is an exciting new chapter for Mailchimp, our 1,200+ dedicated employees, and customers.”
“Together, Mailchimp and QuickBooks will become a powerful engine for small and mid-market business customers to get, engage and retain their customers, run their businesses, optimize cash flow and remain compliant,” said Alex Chriss, Executive Vice President and General Manager of the Intuit Small Business and Self-Employed Group. “Today, QuickBooks helps more than 7 million small and mid-market businesses get paid fast, access capital, pay their employees and grow in an omni-channel world. Mailchimp’s addition will bring speed and velocity to these efforts, with the acceleration of mid-market expansion opportunities and global growth for both brands.”
