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The Australian leader in mobile messaging solutions for small and medium-sized businesses, MessageMedia, has been acquired by Swedish competitor Sinch in a deal worth USD$1.3 billion (AUD$1.7 billion).
Sinch hopes the deal will see the merged entity become the world's preferred mobile messaging partner for SMEs as MessageMedia is complementary to the Stockholm-based company's focus on large and enterprise customers.
Founded in 2000 by Grant Rule, MessageMedia currently serves more than 60,000 customers and handles more than 5 billion mobile messages per year.
The Melbourne-based company's CEO Paul Perrett said Sinch's product, values and global strength were highly complementary to MessageMedia.
This is an exciting day for the MessageMedia team and our customers," Perrett said.
"It's an incredible reinforcement of the world-class people, products and capability we have in place at MessageMedia.
"The transaction is subject to regulatory approvals and even after close of the transaction MessageMedia will continue to operate as a separate business unit, but with a supercharged mission to become the global leader for SMB messaging under Sinch."
Sinch's acquisition of the Australian company comes after MessageMedia consolidated growth in the global market via acquisitions over the past two decades, most recently with SimpleTexting in the US.
Following completion, Sinch CEO Oscar Werner said they will look to accelerate MessageMedia's efforts, encourage international expansion, and task the MessageMedia management team to build a leading position as the preferred mobile messaging vendor for SMEs around the world.
"Addressing small and medium-sized businesses opens up a new avenue to growth and dramatically expands our addressable market. With MessageMedia as a part of Sinch, we have the best team in the industry to capitalise on that opportunity," Werner said.
MessageMedia founder Grant Rule said the sales was the culmination of more than 20 years of work.
"It's been a remarkable journey over the last two decades, from launching our first web-based SMS gateway in 2001 and entering the US in 2007, to now supporting more than 60,000 small and medium sized businesses worldwide and sending over 420 million messages a month in 200 plus countries," Rule said.
"Our success has been born out of a love for technology and problem-solving with our customers and it's those values which will see our growth continue with Sinch."
The $1.7 billion acquisition comes just a week after Melbourne-based edtech A Cloud Guru was snapped up by US giant Pluralsight in a deal described as "one of Australia's biggest" for the tech space.
Pluralsight, based in Silicon Slopes, Utah and worth more than $3 billion, will bring Melbourne-based ACG into the fold later this year, upskilling the company's edtech expertise.
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