Inmar Buys Digital Coupon Startup Hopster in Wiegand’s latest Exit
Jeff Engel November 03, 2014
[updated eleven/three/14, 2:50 p.m., to incorporate comments from Hopster and Inmar executives.] In some other exit for Wisconsin serial entrepreneur Brian Wiegand, e-commerce technology supplier Inmar has acquired Wiegand’s digital coupon startup Hopster for an undisclosed worth.
This marks the fourth tech startup that Wiegand, Hopster’s CEO, has guided to a sale. BizFilings, NameProtect, and Jellyfish have been obtained in offers totaling $ 87 million, Wiegand has stated. His previous company, Alice, is the one one who has failed.
“It’s in reality great so that you could come again sturdy with any other acquisition, a hit,” Wiegand tells Xconomy.
Middleton, WI-primarily based Hopster offers coupons that can elevate in worth the more that consumers interact with a brand, say with the aid of liking a fb web page, signing up for a e-newsletter, or gazing a advertising video. shoppers create a profile on Hopster’s website online, and it tracks each and every consumer’s purchases with the personalised discounts, which will also be redeemed via either printable coupons or syncing the discount with a retailer’s loyalty card. particular person user data will also be shared with brands if the consumer has the same opinion to it.
Inmar, a four,000-worker firm based totally in Winston-Salem, NC, says it used to be attracted via the Hopster software’s potential to generate measurable online engagement between brands and their shoppers, with bargains that extend focused audiences and provide “actual one-to-one advertising.” Hopster has gathered more than three million customers, Wiegand says.
Inmar will combine Hopster’s expertise with its own suite of promoting merchandise, which embrace paper and digital coupon processing, consulting services and products, information analytics, rebates, and consumer behavior analysis. Inmar clients include shops, manufacturers, and trading companions in quite a lot of sectors. the company was once founded in 1980 via John Whitaker, the son of an R.J. Reynolds Tobacco firm executive, as a discount processing industry.
based in 2012, Hopster raised $ four million from Wisconsin angel buyers, with the biggest chunk coming from New Capital Fund in Little Chute, Wiegand says.
Hopster could’ve continued “going it on my own” against the competition and held out for a doubtlessly higher acquisition offer someday, Wiegand says, however he and the executive workforce felt it was once the proper time and Inmar was once the suitable match. Wiegand will stay on as Inmar’s senior vice chairman of digital.
Inmar has lots of clients, a lot of whom it has served for more than two decades, says Hopster co-founder Craig Andler, who now becomes Inmar’s vp of channel sales.
“It offers us a chance to in reality speed up our methods,” Andler says. “this is a large trade with a typically gradual gross sales cycle. They should really be capable of assist convey our products to market faster.”
Hopster will maintain its title and its Middleton administrative center, which hopefully will grow, Wiegand says. Inmar is within the means of evaluating the startup’s 16 workers to see what “roles they will play” within the blended firm, Inmar senior vice president of selling Sharon Joyner-Payne says.
“we’re more than happy to have Hopster, Inc., join the Inmar crew,” Inmar chairman and CEO David Mounts says in a press unencumber. “It changed into evident during our due diligence process that the Hopster staff has rich capabilities—no longer best on the know-how facet, but in addition in constructing and sustaining strong consumer relationships.”
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