What happened: Redbrick Technologies Inc. purchases American website-builder Leadpages
Why it matters: The acquisition expands the Victoria company’s existing portfolio of businesses
A Victoria tech firm is looking south of the border to add to its portfolio of companies.
Redbrick Technologies Inc. has acquired Minnesota-based Avenue 81 Inc. (operating as Leadpages) in a deal announced March 2.
Leadpages boasts 40,000 users and offers website design services for entrepreneurs and marketers at small businesses looking to generate leads.
Its website-building tools don’t require users to be savvy at the coding game.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed but Redbrick estimates the acquisition brings its 2020 run rate to $80 million.
Leadpages’ own annual revenue currently sits at $24 million after previously closing funding rounds totalling $51 million.
“The thing about Leadpages for us is that it just feels so comfortable,” Redbrick CEO Tobyn Sowden told Business in Vancouver.
Redbrick originally launched nine years ago as a marketing company helping software developers acquire new users.
Sowden said he eventually realized his company should be applying that marketing expertise to their own products and businesses.
Redbrick Technologies Inc. CEO Tobyn Sowden
Since then, Redbrick has been building its own products and acquiring other businesses, with a host of portfolio companies now focused on endeavours such as digital publishing, streamlining digital workflows and browser development.
“We have finance, HR and creative that are all services that are shared and provided as resources down to the portfolio companies,” Sowden said.
“Then on the company level, we’ve got a GM or a CEO, and a leadership team that supports just that business.”
All 40 workers at Leadpages will be sticking around under the new parent, bringing Redbrick’s total headcount to about 110 employees.
“We’ve been in the business of marketing for almost 10 years now, helping other companies acquire leads … and of course supporting our own businesses in the last few years,” Sowden said.
“The nice thing about Leadpages is that we can still fulfill that initial mission of helping other companies grow. But instead of being the services company that we were, today through the Leadpages business, we’re a software company that’s building software through a no-code website-builder for people to market themselves, acquire leads and — hopefully — customers.”
