CM.com, a global leader in cloud software for conversational commerce, has entered into exclusive negotiations to acquire Consumer AI technology company Building Blocks. The company combines data science software with data science services empowering its customers to build more relevant and personalized interactions across their businesses.
Over the past three years, the Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) of Building Blocks increased on average by 97% per year and currently adds up to an ARR of approximately € 4.0 million. As a result, the intended acquisition will support CM.com’s strategy to increase its ARR and core gross margin.
Building Blocks was founded in 2013. The company has offices in the Netherlands and approximately 40 employees. The company’s suite of Consumer AI solutions focuses on consumer guidance (to the right offer), consumer engagement and consumer care. Its customer portfolio covers select consumer-verticals and includes renowned brands such as Samsung, Basic-Fit, Corendon and Sligro, which demonstrates the versatility of its offering.
CM.com continuously aims to raise the bar and set new standards in conversational commerce. As such, the intended acquisition of Building Blocks is a great addition and accelerator of our ambition to deliver the next level of conversational commerce aimed at optimizing the customer experience in the entire customer journey.
Similar to previous acquisitions, CM.com believes Building Blocks’ technology is perfectly suited for international expansion. To illustrate, RobinHQ’ technology, acquired in October 2020, has been fully incorporated into CM.com’s Mobile Service Cloud within a year and is now offered in 15 countries.
Jeroen van Glabbeek, CEO CM.com: “We have been working alongside Building Blocks on various joint customer accounts. As a result, we got to know the team and their AI technology very well. We are convinced that incorporating the Building Blocks’ portfolio into our mobile cloud solutions makes perfect sense and will further empower customers to turn consumers into loyal fans. The acquisition offers us multiple advantages. It adds high value consumer AI functionalities to our entire product portfolio and extends our customer base for enhanced up and cross selling opportunities. In addition, their business model provides an extra boost to the development of our recurring revenue base in line with our ambition to gradually move to a more SaaSdriven business model.”
Alexander van Eerden, CEO Building Blocks:
“In the past 8 years we completely focused on delivering value to our clients. That’s what we see at CM.com as well. From a market perspective more and more companies active in the consumer space are using AI to improve their customer journeys, revolutionize how they interact with consumers and deliver them more compelling experiences. Combining the CM.com solutions with our data science software and data science services, creates a highly competitive SaaS-based product for any customer that is maximizing consumer value. In addition, the scale and international footprint of CM.com will enable us to accelerate our growth ambitions and get to our ambition to positively impact 1 billion people with our AI.”
The acquisition will be paid for by a combination of cash and equity consideration. At this stage, we will not disclose exact terms, as we are still in exclusive negotiations. Parties expect to complete the intended transaction in Q1 2022.
2021 Revenue Outlook
With the end of 2021 nearing, we feel comfortable to guide our 2021 revenue outlook to the upper end of the earlier communicated range of € 220 million - € 240 million.
Analysts call
CM.com will host a call for analysts and institutional investors today (14 December 2021) at 10.30 am CET, which we will broadcast live on our website:
https://www.cm.com/investor-relations/.
For more information contact Investor Relations:
Anneke Hoijtink
anneke.hoijtink@cm.com
+31 643280788