Intuit confirms the $12 billion acquisition of Mailchimp

Intuit, the global technology platform behind TurboTax, QuickBooks, Mint, and Credit Karma, has announced it's agreed to acquire Mailchimp.

The planned acquisition is for approximately $12 billion in cash and stock, and Intuit says it advances its mission of powering prosperity and its strategy to become an AI-driven expert platform.

Together, Intuit and Mailchimp will work to deliver an end-to-end customer growth platform for small and mid-market businesses. Allowing them to get their businesses online and providing tools for marketing, managing customer relationships, insights and analytics, accessing capital, paying employees, and staying compliant.

"We're focused on powering prosperity around the world for consumers and small businesses," says Intuit CEO, Sasan Goodarzi.

"Together, Mailchimp and QuickBooks will help solve small and mid-market businesses' most significant barriers to growth - getting and retaining customers. Expanding our platform to be at the centre of small and mid-market business growth helps them overcome their most critical financial challenges.

He says adding Mailchimp furthers the company's vision to provide an end-to-end customer growth platform to help customers grow and run their businesses.

Founded in Atlanta, GA, in 2001, Mailchimp began by offering email marketing solutions and evolved into a global leader in customer engagement and marketing automation fuelled by an AI-driven technology stack.

The company has a global customer reach with 13 million total users globally, 2.4 million entirely active users, and 800,000 paid customers, with 50% of customers outside the U.S. It has data and technology in the form of 70 billion contacts and 250 plus partner integrations. AI-powered automation at scale fuels 2.2 million daily AI-driven predictions.

"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," says Mailchimp CEO and co-founder, Ben Chestnut.

"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 plus dedicated employees, and customers."

Both Intuit and Mailchimp have worked to solve small and mid-market businesses' biggest challenges. For two-thirds of small businesses, finding new customers is their biggest obstacle, and over 25% struggle to retain existing customers. Yet, almost three-quarters of small businesses have not adopted a customer relationship management solution.

Eighty-four 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. Collectively, these challenges create barriers to small and mid-market business success that Intuit believes its acquisition of Mailchimp will help solve.

"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, optimise cash flow and remain compliant," says Intuit Small Business and Self-Employed Group, executive VP and general manager, Alex Chriss.

"Today, QuickBooks helps more than 7 million small and mid-market businesses get paid fast, access capital, pay their employees and grow in an omnichannel 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."