Last week, the Canadian digital marketing platform Vendasta announced another acquisition designed to enlarge its footprint and strengthen its offering. This time, the acquired company is Broadly, a West Coast-based SMB SaaS company that was founded in 2014 by Josh Melick and Assaf Arkin.
Mellick left Broadly in June 2019. He was replaced by Mindy Lauck, who had been Broadly’s head of product. This was the result of Broadly’s acquisition of about.me in February 2019.
Lauck remains Broadly’s CEO. It is not entirely clear from the acquisition announcements whether Broadly would operate independently or be absorbed into Vendasta. However, we infer from the announcement language that Broadly will operate independently. At least initially.
Here is Vendasta’s language about the deal’s purpose.
The deal marks an acceleration of both companies’ strategic growth plans and introduces Broadly’s significant base of customers to the full range of products available through Vendasta’s marketplace while giving their channel partners access to Vendasta’s end-to-end platform.
And here is Vendasta CEO Brendan King’s comment on why Vendasta acquired Broadly.
“This acquisition will bring our industry-leading marketplace to Broadly customers while also giving Broadly access to Vendasta’s R&D expertise to continue to refine the core product,” said Vendasta CEO Brendan King. “The acquisition will provide Broadly with access to Vendasta’s channel distribution with thousands of resellers and exposure to 6 million SMB customers.”
Here is what Broadly’s Lauck had to say about the deal.
“Broadly will fit in perfectly with Vendasta’s customer-first culture,” Lauck said. “Both companies take a user-first approach. And I’m excited about the additional products and services Broadly’s customers will have access to.”
A Growing Number of Deals
This is the third acquisition of significance that we have tracked since May 2021, when Vendasta raised $100 million (about C$119 million at the time). The raise was made in lieu of an IPO, which the company planned, then withdrew.
Vendasta Foregoes IPO Route, Lands $100M Private Round Instead
The biggest of these deals was of course Vendasta’s acquisition of Matchcraft, which was announced in January 2022. And in October 2021, the company bought the Toronto-based calendar tool Calendar Hero.
Vendasta did not reveal the terms for any of these deals.
As King noted, Vendasta accesses more than 6 million SMBs via its channel partners. The company is headquartered in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. It also has offices in Toronto, Boston, and Chennai, India. The company now employs more than 750 people. For the last two years, Vendasta has been named a “Best Workplace in Canada”.
