• Digital commerce solutions provider Flywheel is being acquired by marketing and advertising company Omnicom.
• The deal is expected to close for $835 million in the first quarter of next year.
• Omnicom plans to integrate Flywheel’s Commerce Cloud product and transaction data into its audience and behavioral data.

Digital commerce solutions provider Flywheel has agreed to be acquired by marketing and advertising company Omnicom for $835 million. The deal is set to close in the first quarter of next year.

Owned by data and e-commerce optimization company Ascential, Flywheel was founded in 2014 and offers a suite of tools to help companies grow their digital commerce operations by selling more efficiently on marketplaces such as Amazon, Walmart, and Alibaba. Among the tools in the Flywheel Commerce Cloud are AI-powered content recommendations, automated fee recovery, retail performance analytics, and more.

Switzerland-based Omnicom offers services for advertising, strategic media planning and buying, precision marketing, commerce and branding, customer relationship marketing, public relations, healthcare marketing, and other sectors. The company has more than 5,000 clients spread across 70+ countries.

“The acquisition of Flywheel significantly broadens our reach and influence in the rapidly expanding digital commerce and retail media sectors, two of the fastest-growing parts of the industry,” said Omnicom Chairman and CEO John Wren. “Together, we will seamlessly integrate our offerings across retail and brand media, digital and in-store commerce, and CRM, ultimately delivering superior results for our clients.”

With 4,500 brands as customers, Flywheel and its Commerce Cloud manage “tens of billions”of dollars in product sales and “billions” of dollars in advertising spend on an annual basis across digital marketplaces. Once the acquisition is complete, Flywheel Commerce Cloud’s product and transaction data will be connected to Omnicom’s audience and behavioral data. Logistically, Flywheel will serve as what Omnicom is calling a “Practice Area.” Ascential CEO Duncan Painter will lead the newly created division.

Today’s deal is an example of how data-driven decision making has infiltrated the world of retail and ecommerce. Banks and fintechs can take note: leveraging data-driven insights is becoming tablestakes across multiple sectors, and is something consumers are growing to expect.

Photo by Jeremy Perkins

• Getsafe acquired Luko Insurance’s Germany-based customers.
• The acquisition includes 50,000 policies and boosts Getsafe’s total client roster to 550,000 customers.
• Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Germany-based Getsafe announced this week it has acquired Luko Insurance’s German customer base, which includes 50,000 policies. Terms of the deal, which was approved by the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) in late September, were not disclosed.

Adding Luko’s clients to its own roster, Getsafe now counts 550,000 customers across Germany, the U.K., France, and Austria. Integrating Luko’s clients, which was, as Getsafe CEO and founder explained was “as easy for us as launching a new product,” bolsters Getsafe’s European portfolio.

“Traditional insurance is broken for digitally savvy customers. They would never step into a broker’s office,” said Getsafe CEO and founder Christian Wiens. “We aim to become the go-to platform for 100 million young Europeans who will spend €300 billion on insurance in the next decade.”

Getsafe’s direct-to-consumer (DTC) model, which targets Europeans between 20 to 40 years old, offers liability, legal, drone, contents, health, dental, dog liability, pet health, private pension, and income protection insurance, as well as a children’s savings plan. This DTC model has proven compelling to users. Of the company’s customers, 35% use the app every month, an engagement rate that has resulted in strong growth. In fact, since Getsafe was founded in 2015, the company has doubled its revenue per customer every year.

“By eliminating intermediaries such as brokers and agents, we achieve much higher customer satisfaction scores than the industry average,” Wiens explained. “Additionally, our direct-to-consumer business runs with higher margins and is already operating profitably in our core markets.”

The deal comes four months after France-based Luko was bought by insurance giant Admiral Group, which acquired all but Luko’s German or Spanish operations.

Photo by Vojtech Okenka

• Upgrade is acquiring travel-focused BNPL company Uplift for $100 million.
• The company will use the purchase to build on its existing BNPL offerings.
• Uplift had raised $700 million and was reportedly valued at $195 million during its 2019 Series C round.

Alternative credit provider and digital bank Upgrade made its first acquisition today. The seven year old fintech announced it has purchased buy now, pay later (BNPL) company Uplift for $100 million.

Uplift was founded in 2014 to serve as a BNPL option for U.S. and Canadian consumers at the point-of-sale when booking travel experiences at 300 major travel brands ranging from airlines to cruise companies to resorts. By selecting Uplift at the point-of-sale when booking their travel online, the company’s 3.3 million users can spread the cost of their purchase across multiple months and repay in fixed installments.

Upgrade offers personal loans and digital banking tools including credit cards, checking accounts, and savings accounts. While it doesn’t offer any BNPL tools, the company says its credit cards “combine the flexibility of a credit card with the predictability of a personal loan.”

Upgrade will use today’s acquisition to build its presence in the BNPL space. The company states that travel financing fits within its strategy of making credit available at the point of sale to finance “meaningful expenses.” Upgrade currently focuses on helping its users finance practical expenses such as buying a car or making home improvements, and –with Uplift’s expertise– will be able to enter the travel vertical, as well.

As Upgrade Cofounder and CEO Renaud Laplanche explained, “The Uplift team has established the company as the leading BNPL provider in the travel industry, and we look forward to combining forces to make travel more accessible and affordable for millions of consumers, and over time implement similar solutions in adjacent parts of our customers’ lives.”

Prior to today’s acquisition, Uplift had raised $700 million in combined debt and equity and was reportedly valued at $195 million during its 2019 Series C round.

Headquartered in California with an operations center in Arizona and a technology center in Canada, Upgrade is partnered with Cross River Bank and Blue Ridge Bank for credit lines and banking services, NYDIG for Bitcoin rewards, and Sutton Bank for card issuance. The company has delivered $24 billion in credit via its cards and loans since 2017.

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