Sale of iContact to Vocus for $169 million continues recent M&A momentum
Updata Partners, a leading technology-focused growth equity firm, is pleased to announce the sale of portfolio company iContact to Vocus for $169 million. The transaction marks Updata’s third portfolio exit in three months, following the sales of Jobs2Web to SuccessFactors in December for $110 million and Numara Software to BMC in January for $300 million. The sale represents a 2.7x return on invested capital and a 31% IRR for Updata.
“We are very happy with this result for iContact and believe the combination with Vocus will be a very powerful one in the marketplace. We are proud to have played a part in iContact’s growth into the leading private email marketing company,” said Carter Griffin, General Partner at Updata Partners and iContact Board Member. “The outcome is the culmination of a lot of hard work by Ryan Allis and his team and the positive dynamics of their market. The transaction also serves to reinforce Updata’s strategy of backing high growth technology companies.”
iContact provides email marketing and social media marketing software-as-a-service to small and medium businesses. Updata initially invested in iContact in 2007, providing the first institutional capital. Since the investment, iContact has grown rapidly and is now the largest privately-held provider of SMB email marketing software. The combination of iContact and Vocus creates the clear leader in cross channel integrated marketing software.
iContact Chief Executive Officer, Ryan Allis, commented, “Updata’s contribution was instrumental in iContact’s rapid growth and successful exit. Their strong operational experience and deep understanding of the software-as-a-service model catalyzed our breakout performance.”