Big News: We merge with the Finnish SaaS company Smarp! And what happens when two strong and innovative players join forces? Exactly, they reinvent the rules of the game and expand the employee communications playground. The merger catapults us globally into the top 5 providers of employee communications and engagement solutions and we are now represented in locations in the USA, the DACH region, the UK, France and Scandinavia.
The range of capabilities of both sides has been expanded by valuable expertise and innovative technology: From now on, the benefits of COYO and Smarp, bundled into one product, can drive the digital transformation in organizations even more effectively.
Today, when the "new normal" is no longer new and remote and hybrid work have become part of everyday working life, the demand for digital workplaces is increasing, but so are the requirements for an employee communications solution. By merging our technologies and tools, we have the opportunity to not only improve the future of employee communications, but to shape it.
Customers of Smarp and COYO will therefore benefit from the expanded portfolio, which in the future will include multi-channel communications, a social intranet, options for employee surveys as well as employee recommendations and a marketplace for extensions and integrations. For now, COYO and Smarp will continue to operate under our existing brands and the product development of both platforms will continue as planned.
With the tremendous growth in demand for digital workplace solutions, both us and Smarp have reported double-digit revenue growth over the past three years, bringing our combined total to more than 700 customers across a wide range of industries.
The transaction was supported by Marlin Equity Partners, a global investment firm with over $7.6 billion in capital under management. At the same time, the management and founders of Smarp and COYO and Smarp's largest existing investor, London-based Nauta Capital, will also invest in the new company.
“We are absolutely excited about joining forces as global businesses have never shown a greater need to drive employee engagement during a pandemic and while their digital transformation has not been completed yet. There is both a need and an opportunity for our two companies to form a global leader based on the combined experience we can bring in.” – Jan Marius Marquardt, CEO and founder of COYO
“COYO and Marlin are excellent partners for us to take our common vision forward thanks to the compatibility of our products. It has also been a pleasure to see how well our corporate cultures fit together. Thanks to our broader offering, we are able to serve our enterprise-level customers in an even more diverse manner in both Europe and North America. I firmly believe that our customers will gain significant added value by combining COYO's social intranet and employee surveys with Smarp's core competencies in employee communications and employee advocacy.” – Roope Heinilä, CEO and founder of Smarp
The founders of COYO and Smarp. From left to right: Mikael Lauharanta (COO, Smarp), Daniel Busch (CRO, COYO), Roope Heinilä (CEO, Smarp), Jan Marius Marquardt (CEO, COYO).