CM.com, a global Conversational Commerce platform, strengthens its customer offering through the acquisition of CX Company, a European (cloud-based) digital conversation platform designed to automatically engage customers in a personalized manner via virtual assistants, intelligent chatbots, and conversational artificial intelligence (AI). The transaction comprises a consideration of € 15.5 million (excluding a capped earn-out). Upon closing, the acquisition will be immediately accretive to EBITDA.
Dutch-based CX Company employs approximately 50 FTEs and recorded 2019 revenue of € 6.0 million. The company is currently active in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Germany and France and primarily serves blue chip customers in financial services, telecom and utilities.
Jeroen van Glabbeek, CEO of CM.com: “We believe that mobile phones will become the number one device to enable communication between businesses and consumers. Over the years we have lived up to this by consistently investing in our platform and cooperating with Apple, Google, Facebook, Tencent and many others, to enrich mobile messages with pictures, videos, buttons and various other powerful features. We are all-in on supporting our global enterprise customers to have meaningful conversations with their consumers. CX Company’s enterprise-grade chatbot technology and high added value solutions are a perfect addition to our offering and an important next step in our journey to become the world leading one-stop-shop for Conversational Commerce."
Dirk Jan Dokman, CCO and co-founder of CX Company: “CM.com offers us a unique opportunity to accelerate our expansion strategy and jointly grow into a leading player in Europe and beyond. We are very much looking forward to being part of CM.com.”
Rationale
The acquisition is expected to further boost CM.com’s growth strategy as CX Company’s multinational client base covers various industry verticals and offers numerous opportunities for cross and upselling.
In addition, CX Company adds a new, fast-growing and recurring revenue stream which is primarily SaaS-based. The CX Company features of conversational AI, which will be added to the CM.com platform, provide for a next level Conversational Commerce experience. It will also meet the increasing demand we see in the market for a one-stop-shop Conversational Commerce provider, after teamingup multiple times with CX Company. It is expected to generate additional traction and accelerate our global expansion strategy, as we see increasing demand for such features from customers and prospects in regions like the Middle East, Africa and the US.
The two current active founders of CX Company will remain with the company and are fully committed to execute the growth strategy.
Financing
The agreed consideration of € 15.5 million will be paid via a combination of cash and shares. For this purpose, CM.com will issue € 4.0 million in ordinary shares. The number of new shares that will be issued will be around 1% of the current total number of shares outstanding, depending on the issuance price. The issuance price is determined by the average share price during the 22 days preceding closing of the transaction.
The issuance of new shares to partly finance this transaction, helps CM.com to retain the financial means for further growth and business expansion.
Closing of the transaction is expected at the end of this quarter. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions.
CM.com will host a conference call for analysts and investors, today at 11.00 am CET to further elaborate on this acquisition. Please register here for the conference call. The webcast will be live broadcasted at
https://www.cm.com/investor-relations/news
This press release contains inside information within the meaning of Article 7(1) of the EU Market Abuse Regulation.