News

March 23, 2021

Hopin acquires two new businesses

With its latest acquisitions, Hopin joins Cazoo and HousingAnyWhere as the joint most acquisitive startups in Europe.


Freya Pratty

3 min read

Johnny Boufarhat, Hopin's ex-CEO

Virtual events platform Hopin, which secured a $5.65bn valuation earlier this month, has acquired two new businesses — video hosting site Streamable and workplace video collaboration app Jamm.

It follows a series of acquisitions by Hopin, and puts it in the ranks of Europe’s most acquisitive startups. 

In December, it acquired mobile app development platform Topi (for an undisclosed amount) and then in January it acquired video streaming company StreamYard (for $250m). 

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The technology from the two latest acquisitions will be integrated within Hopin’s current product to enhance its video features. 

For Hopin’s founder, Johnny Boufarhat, acquisitions are key to the company expanding its offering to cusomers.

“By becoming a multi-product company with a wide range of tools available to customers, we will help shape the future of not only events but also video communication, remote collaboration and interactive experiences.”

Boufarhat doesn't rule out more acquisitions across the rest of the year. 

“With the acquisitions of Streamable and Jamm following those of Topi and StreamYard earlier this year, it is safe to say that we have an ambitious product roadmap for 2021.”

Across 2020 and 2021, the company has acquired four companies, the same number as online car retailer Cazoo and Dutch online housing site HousingAnywhere.

Europe’s most acquisitive startups across 2020 and 2021

  • Hopin's four acquisitions: StreamYard, Topi, Jamm, Streamable
  • Cazoo's four acquisitions: Drover, Smart Fleet Solutions, Cluno, Imperial Car Markets 
  • HousingAnyWhere's four acquisitions: Kamernet, Stanzazo, Studenten-WG, Rentmate 
  • Klarna's three acquisitions: Nuji, Moneymour, Spring Marketplace 
  • Tink's three acquisitions: OpenWrks, Instantour, Eurobits Technologies
  • UnifiedPost's three acquisitions: BanqUP, Akti, 21GRAMS

Cazoo, headquartered in the UK and launched in 2018, has used acquisitions as a way of moving its business into Europe. 

The company’s founder, Alex Chesterman said its decision to acquire car rental service Drover was in part down to the fact that the company has an existing business in France. He said this was “the natural place” for Cazoo to start in Europe, as well as a way to help it move into car rental. 

For 12-year-old HousingAnywhere, acquisitions also seem to be about geographical expansion. 

It acquired fellow Dutch classifieds website Klamernet, in a move it said was about shoring up its prominence in the Netherlands, as well as buying up Italian rental website Stanzazo, Germany’s Studenten-WG and Iceland’s Rentmate.

Swedish fintech Klarna has also gone on a bit of an acquiring spree across the past year. 

It bought up Nuji, a UK-based platform that recommends products to customers, as well as Moneymour, an Italian buy-now-pay-later site and Spring Marketplace, which connects digital platforms with ecommerce outlets. 

Tink, a Swedish financial data startup, has also made three acquisitions over the past year, as has Belgian fintech UnifiedPost, which went public last year

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Acquisitions: dominated by cooperates

Despite the flurry of fast-growing startups, the companies that still acquire the most are corporate companies. 

Across the 100 most acquisitive companies in Europe, only six of them are startups.

Digital consulting company Accenture has acquired the most — 38 — across the 2020 and 2021 so far. Fellow digital consulting company Atos comes in second with 11.

Freya Pratty

Freya Pratty is a senior reporter at Sifted. She covers climate tech, writes our weekly Climate Tech newsletter and works on investigations. Follow her on X and LinkedIn