We are thrilled to announce that FE International has successfully completed the acquisition of iAcquisitions, a leading privately held e-commerce mergers and acquisitions (M&A) advisory firm.
Chicago based iAcquisitions, led by industry veterans Lenny Farber and Sal DiGuardia, holds a network of over 7,000 qualified investors and boasts eight figures in annual business sales.
The acquisition will further bolster our market share in the e-commerce space and we will use iAcquisitions as a launch pad for a new platform, to be released early next year, to facilitate the sale of even more e-commerce businesses. The acquisition also adds a Chicago location to our global reach, with physical locations already in Boston, London and Ho Chi Minh City.
Ismael Wrixen, Group CEO, commented, “Lenny and his partners have built a fantastic business in iAcquisitions. Having spent several years competing with them, we were most impressed by how successful their talented team has been in serving their loyal clients. We are now looking forward to a new era of dominance in the e-commerce space.” Click here to read the full press release.
Featured in SaaS listings this week is a $538K language learning software business, with a proprietary CRM to facilitate the introduction of new languages, a growing user base of over 600 customers, and a strong year-over-year MRR growth of c.113% for the 2015 to (e)2017 period. Also featured this week is a $413K email marketing software business in the real estate niche, with a diversified customer base of c.500 customers growing across various sectors, exceptionally strong customer LTV of $1,150, and strong, consistent revenue growth with a CAGR of c.24% between 2012 to 2016. If you are interested in learning more about these popular SaaS businesses, be sure to request a prospectus, as we have already received several interested inquiries.
In event news, founder Thomas Smale has been confirmed as a speaker at MicroConf EU in November. Thomas is spending this weekend in Las Vegas at Rhodium Weekend before heading to Digital Footprint in Los Angeles. We also had a great time hosting our monthly Boston E-commerce Meetup this week, and were glad to see everyone who came and joined in on the panel discussion and networking! If you weren’t able to make it check out the livestream here. If you will be attending any of these events, or will be in the area around that time, shoot us an email so we can set up one on one meetings.
Continue reading below for more on Walmart’s partnership with Apple, Amazon’s daring disruption of online deliveries, and Adobe’s new advertising dashboard mobile app.
Deal Highlights
Featured:
SaaS – B2C Language Course and Education – $14.8K MRR
- Strong year over year MRR growth, reaching c.113% CAGR from 2015 to forecasted 2017
- Growing and diversified customer base with over 600 customers
- Proprietary CRM to facilitate introduction of additional language courses
- Keyword rankings for over 20,000 keywords with hundreds in top 10 position rankings
- Low owner involvement
Yearly net profit: $172,000
Asking price: $538,000
SaaS – Real Estate Email Marketing – $25K MRR
- Strong and consistent revenue growth with a CAGR of c.24% between 2012 to 2016 and still growing
- Diversified customer base with c.500 customers across various sectors
- Strong customer LTV of c.$1,150
- Stable MRR of $25.4K and still growing
Yearly net profit: $109,000
Asking price: $413,000
Sold:
SaaS – B2B Workflow Solutions – $11K MRR
In the News…
Apple and Walmart–Dynamic Duo?
At this week’s Jamf Enterprise conference, Walmart hinted at plans to increase their in-store distribution of Macs for employee use from 7000 to 100,000 in the next year.
Currently, Walmart manages 7000 Macs across their stores globally, according to their Apple technical expert Miles Leacy who spoke at the conference. According to Leacy, “it’s hard to dispute the facts” when deciding whether to use Macs or Windows machines: Macs generate fewer customer service calls/IT requests, and so ultimately cost less for Walmart to operate. Leacy noted that 60 percent of support calls came from Windows users and 40 percent came from Mac users, and this combined with the lower cost of rolling out a Mac versus supporting a Windows machine means that Walmart has its sight set on expanding their use of Macs to 100,000 in the next year. This represents a growing success by Apple to become more widely used across enterprises, since Microsoft is currently far and away the frontrunner in this space. This move follows IBM’s partnership with Apple to give 100,000 Macs to employees, which has reportedly yielded excellent results for IBM.
Is this a move on Walmart’s part to position themselves as a more “hip” company? Is it really just for cost purposes? Let us know what you think in a reply to this email! We loved all the responses we got last week; can’t wait to see what you think this week!
Amazon Bets we’re Ready to Take the Next Big Step
On Wednesday, Amazon opened up their new camera and lock system for pre-order, which will begin offering in-home delivery in 37 cities around the country. What does that mean?
The camera, which Amazon crew will come around to install, works like any security camera might, showing you the inside of your home 24/7 in addition to the front door. When your package arrives, a delivery person scans the barcode on your package to ensure that it’s the correct one, then the custom lock on your door opens up to let them leave your package inside the door. Once that barcode has been scanned, the camera starts recording, and send you a video of your package being safely and appropriately delivered for your own peace of mind. It should be noted that while the locks are made by two very well-known lock brands, the camera is an Amazon original product. The camera can take voice commands and integrate with Alexa. Once users have purchased the $249.99 system, in-home delivery is always an option for products that aren’t oversized, as long as it’s in one of the 37 cities in which Amazon runs their own delivery system, since they do not yet trust other carriers with the task.
Amazon is banking on a huge amount of trust from Prime consumers, so we will see if the increased convenience will make it worth allowing a stranger free access to your home, even if it is recorded. The company is hoping to expand this service in the future.
Adobe’s New Advertising Mobile App
Adobe has released a mobile app for their Advertising Cloud, which is will allow marketers to view their advertising campaigns across multiple channels on mobile, rather than relying solely on desktop.
The new app, which was announced on the 12th, will be “the industry’s first mobile app for cross-channel advertising campaign management to provide marketers the tools they need to ensure performance and delivery wherever they are.” In addition to the app, advertisers will also have access to expanded advertising capabilities, including purchasing audio advertising, which, according to Adobe, represents a $200 million advertising opportunity. The app aims to make advertising visible to marketers all in one convenient dashboard, as well as help organize and purchase data-driven advertising opportunities. It features monitoring of campaign-level performance and delivery metrics in real-time, swipe-to-activate and automated pausing of campaigns following pre-set parameters (think budget caps and impression goals met), and reporting for all metrics currently available on desktop computers, “including total spend, impressions, viewability rates, click-through rates, completion rates, and more.”
The app is available for free to current customers on both Android and iOS.