Intuit, the parent company of fintech products like TurboTax and QuickBooks, announced on Monday its plans to acquire Mailchimp, a leader among marketing automation and customer engagement vendors. The acquisition is valued at an estimated $12 billion in cash and stock, and is expected to close by the end of Intuit’s second quarter fiscal 2022.
Intuit + Mailchimp: an unexpected match
The Mailchimp acquisition comes as somewhat of a surprise from Intuit. The company’s prior acquisitions have been focused on personal finance tools like Credit Karma in December 2020 and Mint.com in November 2009. Although Intuit’s QuickBooks offering is a strong contender in the small business payroll and accounting markets, it’s one of the only business-focused products the company offers.
Mailchimp, on the other hand, has been focused on supporting small businesses since its inception. As Mailchimp co-founder and CEO Ben Chestnut shared in an article, “From the very beginning, we always wanted to empower small businesses to grow. It’s in our DNA, and it became our mission with Mailchimp.”
Although unexpected, the blending of Mailchimp’s marketing platform with Intuit’s fintech prowess will lead to innovative solutions for small businesses around the world. “Together with Intuit,” Chestnut said, “we’ll deliver an innovative small business growth engine powered by marketing automation, customer relationship management, accounting and compliance, payments and expense, and e-commerce solutions, creating a single source of truth for your business.”
Big Bets for small businesses
Intuit said in its press release that the Mailchimp acquisition will help the company address some of the biggest challenges facing small businesses today. Specifically, the combined features of QuickBooks and Mailchimp will help small businesses find new customers, retain existing ones, streamline inventory management, and optimize cash flow.
“Delivering on the promise to be the single source of truth, small and mid-market businesses will have the power to combine their customer data from Mailchimp and QuickBooks’ purchase data to get the actionable insights they need to grow and run their businesses with confidence,” the release stated.
These goals align directly with two of Intuit’s five Big Bets: to become the center of small business growth; and to disrupt the small business mid-market. Intuit’s ultimate objective is to become an “AI-driven expert platform” that uses innovation to meet small businesses’ unique needs at every turn. The company expects that the Mailchimp acquisition will help small businesses overcome a wide range of barriers to success.
Read next: Top Small Business Accounting Software 2021
