Dutch Unicorn MessageBird Acquires Two Startups

Dutch unicorn MessageBird has acquired Amsterdam-based video meeting startup 24Sessions and Atlanta-based data startup Hull to help power its tools used to connect businesses like Uber, Deliveroo, and SAP with customers via chat, messaging and video apps. 

The deals follow MessageBird’s acquisition of U.K.-based ‘push’ notification and messaging startup Pusher in January and the Amsterdam-based business raising $200 million in a Series C round in October that reportedly valued the business at $3 billion. 

MessageBird has been branded as a European challenger to the American cloud company Twilio that helps businesses like Nordstrom communicate with customers. San Francisco-based Twilio business saw demand surge through the pandemic, powering its market cap to $53.7 billion after listing in 2016 at a $1.2 billion valuation.

MessageBird founder and CEO Robert Vis said 24Sessions would help clients run encrypted video calls with clients, while Hull’s AI technology would help track customers’ data across different messaging platforms. 

“It makes sense going from physical to digital, which obviously Covid accelerated, that video is needed to onboard customers,” said Vis in an interview with Forbes. “If you are using all types of different tools to communicate with customers the things that continue to come back are pop ups, which we did with Pusher, and things like video and customer data platforms so for us this rounding out the pieces on our platform to provide our customers with the services they want.”

Vis pushed back on speculation that MessageBird would join a rush of European tech companies in pushing for an initial public offering or listing via a SPAC merger. "An IPO is a tool to achieve something and access to capital markets is one of the most logical reasons but if you look at our last fundraise and at the markets today the reality is that access to capital is just as good in private markets so the question then for us is what are we trying to achieve,” said Vis. 

Vis founded the business in 2011 and bootstrapped the business until landing a $60 million Series A round led by Atomico and Accell Partners in 2017 with the business currently generating $300 million revenue. 

MessageBird is part of a cluster of high-growth companies based out of the Netherlands’ largest city. Payments platform Adyen listed in 2018 and has become one of Europe’s most valuable tech companies, while Just Eat Takeway has gobbled food delivery rivals including GrubHub, which it acquired for $7.3 billion in June 2020.