AMSTERDAM Reuters MessageBird, one of Europes fastestgrowing software companies, said on Wednesday it had agreed to buy email giant SparkPost for 600 million in a deal that will increase its sales by around 50 and expand its client base in the United States.
MessageBird also announced one of the largest financing rounds for a European tech startup on record to pay for the deal, raising an additional 800 million from investors including Eurazeo, Tiger Global and Owl Rock.
MessageBird, a cloud communications business sometimes compared to Twilio, helps corporations organise and manage communications with customers that may be switching between smart phone messaging apps, video conferencing tools, web chats, and voice calls at different times.
SparkPost, the largest sender of businesstocustomer emails, helps companies send and analyse their email communications.
MessageBird CEO Robert Vis said the deal would give the company access to SparkPosts U.S. customer base while SparkPosts product would improve its offerings to customers in the rest of the world.
This will put a smile on the face of my sales team, he said in a phone interview.
The deal will increase the groups combined sales to 500 million based on their most recent financial years, he said.
In March, Reuters reported that MessageBirds 2020 sales had passed 300 million after strong growth amid the coronavirus pandemic.
To finance the deal, MessageBird added 800 million to a previous 200 million series C…