SMB Buyer Profile: Intuit
This is the first of our profiles of active buyers of SMB-focused startups. In many cases, we know the buyers well. However, these posts will only contain publicly available information.
Intuit is a company that needs no introduction in the small business space. Founded in 1983, Intuit’s Quickbooks product is the accounting platform of choice for over 5 million businesses. In addition, the company is the clear market leader in personal taxes through it’s Turbotax product.
Intuit has long been an active acquirer. Some of it’s biggest divisions came through acquisition. Since going public in 1993, Intuit has made 35 acquisitions. Some have been quite large, such as their 2006 purchase of Digital Insight for $ 1.35B. Most, however, have been more modest.
Here is a look at their acquisition activity by deal size over time:
Over 1/2 of their deals have no disclosed value. Sometimes deals with no disclosed value are actually quite large deals, but the buyer is so large that on a relative basis, the deal is immaterial and therefore, no need to disclose. Intuit is pretty good about disclosing deal values though. So, it’s safe to assume that the majority of the deals with no disclosed value are small.
While Intuit has a long history of acquisition, they have not announced any deals since Q1 2015. Here’s a look at acquisition activity by quarter since Q1 2013:
We expect to see Intuit resume it’s acquisition pace soon.
Intuit’s 5 largest deals:
Interestingly, Intuit has sold out of it’s three largest acquisitions. Despite it’s size, Intuit remains a nimble, dynamic company that is not afraid to change course in order to win.
Intuit’s 5 most recent deals:
As you can see, the company’s most recent acquisitions have been quite modest. Only the two most recent deals had a disclosed value. These deals also give us some insight into Intuit’s plans going forward. While Intuit has dominant market share in the US, 2 of these 5 deals were international in nature. International markets represent a growth opportunity for the company.
Looking forward…
As the #2 company on our SurePath SMB Index, Intuit remains massive force in the market. They are in the midst of a transformation of their business from selling desktop software to selling cloud subscriptions. This transformation is going well.
The company has two main strategic goals:
- Become the ‘operating system’ for small business
- Do the Nations’ taxes
On the small business side, we expect to see big movements in this market as the next generation of small business owners look for modern, mobile tools to run their businesses (see why we love SMB for more on this).
We expect to see Intuit continue to be an active buyer of companies and to maintain it’s leadership role in the SMB market.
