Wishpond checks all the boxes for what we look for in an investment.  As always, it begins with management.  A few of the adjectives that come to mind – pragmatic, disciplined, operationally meticulous.  The team, lead by CEO, Ali Tajsekandar, is not an overnight success.  They took the long road to success by investing carefully on their way to $7 million in revenue and profitability.

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The next important checkbox for us is customer validation.  Over 2,000 paying clients across North America, South America and Europe rely on Wishpond for their digital marketing technology needs.  Customer concentration is low and retention rates are rising.  

The industry was already massive but Covid fueled growth even further.  Virtually all SMBs have needed to consider their e-commerce and digital marketing strategies since lockdowns came to disrupt the traditional channels.  Wishpond’s tagline of “Marketing Made Simple” is precisely what these new clients are going to need in order to navigate the market’s complexity.  Rather than evaluating and contracting with ten different vendors for your website, marketing campaigns, email marketing, bookings, payments, analytics, CRM…you get the gist, you can use Wishpond and move on.  That’s a value proposition that we believe will resonate.

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How about competition?  This is the big fear any investor will consider when evaluating digital marketing companies.  There are countless variants targeting the space in their own unique way.  Yes, big markets will always attract lots of competitors but the big advantage we now see with Wishpond is the public currency.  Lots of competitors means lots of opportunities to acquire small yet solid businesses at reasonable valuations.  Wishpond’s market is ripe with opportunities to grow organically and through acquisition.  

M&A can also be risky but that’s why we started with management.  A disciplined and focused team mitigates M&A risk.  Wishpond’s track record of execution gave us the confidence to invest.  We look forward to seeing more great things from this group.

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