Robert Vis. Image: MessageBird
The acquisition of Pusher comes hot on the heels of MessageBird’s Series C funding round in October 2020.
Amsterdam-based cloud communications platform MessageBird has today (16 December) announced the acquisition of real-time API start-up Pusher.
The $35m deal will give MessageBird access to a range of new tools and features such as in-app messaging, push notifications and location tracking.
The news follows a recent $200m Series C funding round for MessageBird, led by Spark Capital, Accel and Atomico. This brings the company’s valuation to $3bn as it continues on the road to IPO.
Pusher’s London-based team will now become part of MessageBird. The UK company’s customer base – which includes GitHub, MailChimp, Codeship and The Financial Times – will join the likes of Deliveroo, Lufthansa, Heineken, Hugo Boss, Rituals Cosmetics and SAP, which are MessageBird users.
While Pusher’s real-time platform of APIs will be integrated to become MessageBird Pusher, it will still be available as a standalone product and support existing customers.
MessageBird founder and CEO Robert Vis said the global pandemic has accelerated digital transformation, which is driving consumer demand for new ways of communication.
“Bringing Pusher into the MessageBird family means it will be even easier for the 15,000 companies that rely on us to meet and communicate with their customers through messaging in whatever channel they prefer,“ he said.
Pusher’s CEO, Max Williams, said joining MessageBird is an “opportunity to accelerate the impact and reach” of the product his team has been building for the last 10 years.
MessageBird was founded in Amsterdam in 2011. According to TechCrunch, the company’s first institutional investment came in late 2017 when it raised $60m in Series A funding, and this was reportedly followed by a quiet round of $40m in Series B funding in February 2019.
In July 2019, the company announced expansion plans in Europe with the opening of a new hub in Dublin. It also has offices in San Francisco, Singapore, Bogotá, London, Shanghai, Hamburg and Sydney.
