Email management services company MailManager has been acquired by compliance software business Ideagen in a deal worth nearly £30 million.
The architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) sector has long been heavily dependent on email correspondence, despite the opportunity to move some communications to alternative workflow and document collaboration platforms. One business solution that thrived in this environment was MailManager, originally developed as a standalone application by a team at UK consultancy Arup (read June 2020 post, AEC reliance on email remains high, Mail Manager research shows).
According to press reports (eg: Business Sale Report), compliance software firm Ideagen has acquired MailManager in a deal potentially worth up to £29.2 million, representing approximately a 5.7x multiple of MailManager’s annualised recurring revenue of around £5.1 million. The acquisition will involve a £26.4 million up-front cash consideration along with a £2.8 million deferred conditional earnout. The deal will be funded using Ideagen’s existing resources and is the first takeover the company has completed since a £103.5 million equity fundraise in December. Proceeds from this fundraise will be uses to finance its acquisition pipeline and future growth.
Collaboration
Nottinghamshire, UK-based Ideagen forecasts that the company will benefit from the operational leverage the group provides, enabling it to achieve EBITDA margins in line with wider group margins inside the first full financial year post-deal. Ideagen says it will integrate the business into its collaboration division – alongside Huddle (see below).
Ideagen CEO Ben Dorks said that MailManager “has a resilient business model, a quality customer base, a strong team and outstanding technology,” continuing:
“MailManager joins our growing suite of leading collaboration software, enhances our ARR base and has a strong presence in key end markets where we expect to be able to drive group-wide growth. Our mission is to help customers effectively navigate highly regulated environments through great software and we look forward to making further complementary acquisitions from our pipeline in due course.”
Huddle owner
In December 2020, Ideagen acquired Huddle, a supplier of SaaS-based secure content collaboration and workflow solutions. The Huddle portfolio of solutions facilitates remote working through document version control, secure file sharing, task management and file collection using the Huddle portal or accompanying mobile app. The acquisition of Huddle, which was Ideagen’s 20th and largest yet, was made possible by a recent funding round which netted Ideagen £48.7m.
