Protus Gets GOT

Protus, an Ottawa-based provider of SaaS communications tools for small and mid-sized businesses, has acquired GOT Corp., a Montreal-based email marketing services company. No financial terms were disclosed. Protus has raised VC funding from firms like Bank of Montreal Capital Corp., EdgeStone Capital Venture Fund, B.E.S.T. Discoveries Fund and Covington Capital Corp. GOT had been backed by Celtic House Venture Partners, XDL Intervest Capital, BCE Capital and Mosaic Venture Partners.

PRESS RELEASE

Protus, a leading provider of Software as a Service (SaaS) communications tools for small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs), today announced the acquisition of GOT Corporation, the provider of Campaigner and Campaigner Pro. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Headquartered in Montreal, GOT is an email marketing services firm whose industry-leading Campaigner and Campaigner Pro SaaS products are used by thousands of Small to Medium Business (SMB) and Enterprise organizations including Nokia, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Nielsen Media Research, AT&T, and West49. The subscription-based Campaigner solutions enable organizations to personalize and target one-to-one email communications.

The acquisition aligns with Protus' strategic focus to deliver on a subscription-based business model as an SaaS provider. Campaigner complements Protus' suite of productivity tools for small businesses that also includes MyFax, the fastest growing Internet fax service, and my1voice, the recently-introduced, feature-rich virtual PBX phone service.

“This is the latest initiative in our company's expansion strategy. The fast-growing email marketing space positions our company for sustainable long-term growth.” said Joseph Nour, CEO of Protus. “With the addition of Campaigner's email marketing solutions, Protus is now strongly positioned to provide our customers with the most comprehensive suite of on-demand voice, fax and email communication services available to the SMB market today.”

“Aberdeen's research demonstrates that integration is a driving force behind today's technology investments. Companies are looking for ways to simplify and automate inbound and outbound communication. Integration helps companies improve marketing performance and overall operations efficiency,” said Ian Michiels, Aberdeen Group's senior research analyst, marketing management and digital marketing. “The Campaigner email marketing service will add outbound marketing communication tools to the existing Internet fax and voice offerings at Protus.”

Founded in 1999, the Campaigner service was one of the first self-service Email Marketing Service Providers (ESPs). In addition, Campaigner is a founding member of the Email Sender Provider Coalition, where it helped shape the industry's best practices for permission-based email marketing.

“Protus' combined product suite now offers SMB organizations cost-effective communication solutions that were once within reach of only the largest companies,” said Nour. “Campaigner solutions today are the vanguard for industry and technology innovations in the email marketing space. We are committed to the evolution of all of our products by continuing our investment in the areas of technology, research and development, and network management.”

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