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- Climb's M&A Weekly: Deals by Beehiiv, Valsoft and Simplify Healthcare
Climb's M&A Weekly: Deals by Beehiiv, Valsoft and Simplify Healthcare
Beehiiv acquire former YC graduate as they expand their website builder tools and Valsoft buy their first ad operations management company
Nick @ Climb
June 30, 2024
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Welcome to Climb Advisor’s weekly deal newsletter highlighting transactions announced last week across the B2B tech landscape.
Climb Advisors is an M&A and credit advisory firm focused on B2B software and services companies in the range of $5m to $100m+ enterprise value. We guide CEOs and business owners through the process of selling their business & assist investors in sourcing & closing great deals. We love to talk markets and share beneficial information - please reach out any time.
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Newsletter publishing platform Beehiiv to acquire former YC graduate Typedream
Overview: Beehiiv is acquiring Typedream, an AI-powered website builder to expand the capabilities of their platform which has up to now mainly focused on publishing newsletters. Users of Beehiiv will soon have access to features such as a drag and drop web builder, a library with hundreds of different web templates and tools to assist with building robust sitemaps, copy, design and website optimizations. Read more here.
Climb Comment: Beehiiv is one of the more exciting growth stories of the past few years - founded by ex-Morning Brew employees in 2021, they most recently raised $33m in April and here expand further into web publishing. Newsletters are becoming one of the most valuable marketing & distribution channels as individuals and brands desire to ‘own’ their audience vs be subject to whims of social media algorithms and it makes sense for Beehiiv to acquire a landing page builder and cement their place as a go-to top of funnel solution. Typedream has some neat modernized capabilities around native AI & intuitive drag & drop and comes out of YC Winter ‘20 cohort.
Valsoft makes Aysling the latest addition to their media portfolio
Overview: Vertical software buyer Valsoft is acquiring Aysling, making them their first media portfolio company to focus specifically on ad operations management. Their flagship product AdOrbit, provides visibility into management of advertising sales and operational processes to more than 200 media publishers. Main features include automatic selling processes, managing advertising inventory, centralizing CRM data, fulfilling accounting processes and providing customers with relevant insights. Read more here.
Climb Comment: Aysling serves both print & digital publishers with an ERP focused on running the backend operations of advertising. Any time an industry has unique & disparate systems, there is an opportunity for a purpose-built software to unite them & provide efficiency on top and groups like Valsoft, Constellation, ESW Capital, and many others have made a discipline of acquiring & streamlining these businesses. Aysling will have the opportunity to grow globally via Valsoft’s worldwide sales & marketing engine and the Aysling management team will stay aboard to continue growth.
Simplify Healthcare acquires Virtical.ai and their data extraction and comparison tools
Overview: Simplify Healthcare, a provider of SaaS solutions to health insurance companies is acquiring Virtical.ai. By training Viritical’s AI tools on the thousands of health plan specific documents at their disposal, Simplify’s clients will now be able to offer hyper-personalized plans and benefits to their customers. The new platform will also allow insurance companies to compare rates with those of their competitors and identify gaps in their network both by customer and prospect, helping them see where to immediately target marketing spend. Read more here.
Climb Comment: Yet another deal that sees an established healthtech company acquire an AI startup. Virtical excels in running AI queries against unstructured data to create actionable reports & drive business results. Virtical management will join Simplify.
Keensight Capital backed Pixid Group acquires VectorVMS from Learning Technologies Group
Overview: Pixid Group, a European provider of temporary workforce management software solutions, is acquiring VectorVMS for $50M on a cash and debt free basis. The Raleigh based company supplies vendor management software to both corporate clients and managed services providers with a focus on the healthcare, finance and government sectors. It’s also worth noting that PE managers Keensight Capital, who backed the acquirer, focus on pan-European growth buyout investments. Read more here.
Climb Comment: VectorVMS provides vendor management solutions - tracking things like regulatory compliance, contractor drug screens, ID tracking, timesheet management & more for large enterprises that periodically rely on 3rd party talent. Pixid offers a similar suite of services.
Vector reported $11.4m in revenue & $7.1m in adj ebitda for ‘23. Very healthy margins especially noting that the platform is not strictly saas but offers a managed service component as well. ~7x ebitda multiple feels very fair for something of this scale without knowing more metrics from behind the curtain. Kudos to all.
Fractal announces merger of Eugenie.ai
Overview: Fractal provides AI and advanced analytics solutions to Fortune 500 companies to drive significant value for these large enterprises whilst addressing global challenges. By integrating Eugenie’s AI-driven climate solutions, they will be able to do just that. Fractal will also be able to expand their client portfolio with Eugenie.ai serving some of the world’s largest industrial corporations across energy, metals & mining, and other hard-to-abate sectors. Read more here.
Climb Comment: Fractal states a mission to ‘leverage AI for social good’ and here they acquire a robust platform focused on climate health. Eugenie provides digital twin models for industrial clients - factories, mines, refiners - with an ability to manipulate models using AI to drive more efficient processes and lower emissions. Very cool tech with implications beyond lowering emissions & a great addition to Fractal’s current service offerings & F100 customer base.
Article of the week
This week’s article sees TechExit.io sit down with Austin Johnsen, Head of Corporate Development at work automation platform Zapier. In this interview he lists out 5 important qualities it takes to do a deal with Zapier and other software giants. Pay special attention to #3 & remember that advisory support is always beneficial in conversations with Corp Dev groups at large companies. Read the full article here.
Thanks for following along & hope you found something useful or interesting.
All the best,
Nick