BREAKING Keap acquired by Thryv Holdings for $80M in Oct 2024 • 23.5 billion emails sent in 2022 • $2.6B in payments processed in 2021 • Raised $207M+ from Goldman Sachs & Bain Capital • Named #1 All-in-One CRM on G2 in 2024 • Over 31,500 small business customers worldwide • Started in a spare bedroom. Literally. • BREAKING Keap acquired by Thryv Holdings for $80M in Oct 2024 • 23.5 billion emails sent in 2022 • $2.6B in payments processed in 2021 • Raised $207M+ from Goldman Sachs & Bain Capital • Named #1 All-in-One CRM on G2 in 2024 • Over 31,500 small business customers worldwide • Started in a spare bedroom. Literally. •

Company Profile • CRM • SMB Software

Keap

The CRM that grew out of a balloon shop - and means it.

Small businesses don't need another spreadsheet. They need a system that remembers what they forget, follows up when they're overwhelmed, and closes deals while they're on a job site. That's Keap - all-in-one CRM, email automation, payment processing, and pipeline management. Built in Chandler, Arizona since 2001. Trusted by over 31,500 businesses. Acquired. Still fighting.

Founded 2001 Chandler, AZ #1 CRM on G2 31,500+ Customers

Origin Story

It Started With Balloons

In 2001, brothers Scott and Eric Martineau had a problem. Their father ran a balloon-tying business, and the follow-up was killing them. Leads fell through the cracks. Customers weren't hearing back. Revenue was leaking out of every seam. So they did what engineers do: they built a fix.

Working out of a spare bedroom, they created software to automate the things no one had time to do manually. Then they brought in Clate Mask, who saw something bigger. Not just a fix for one shop - a platform for every small business drowning in the same chaos.

They named the company Infusion Software. The product was Infusionsoft. For 16 years it ran under that name - becoming the industry benchmark for small business CRM before most people even knew what CRM stood for.

By 2013, Goldman Sachs was writing them a $54 million check. By 2014, Bain Capital added another $55 million. The company's trajectory was pointing toward something that looked a lot like an IPO. Revenue hit $100 million in 2017. Then the market turned.

In January 2019, Infusionsoft made a calculated bet: shed the complex name, reach a wider audience, and grow faster under a simpler brand. The company became Keap. The GitHub org is still named "infusionsoft." Some things die hard.

"We built it to solve our dad's balloon shop problem. Then we realized every small business owner had the same problem." - The founding origin, paraphrased

CHANDLER, AZ

What You Can Do With It

One Platform. A Lot of Horsepower.

Keap is not a feature list. It's the difference between spending your Tuesday morning manually emailing leads versus having that handled automatically while you're on a job site. Here's what's in the box.

Core

Keap CRM

Contact management that actually connects the dots - interaction histories, emails, calls, notes, payments, and invoices in one record. No tab-switching. No copy-pasting between tools.

Automation

Marketing Automation

Drag-and-drop campaign builder that triggers based on what contacts do - or don't do. Send the right message at the right moment without touching it manually each time.

Reach

Email & Text Marketing

Broadcast emails, 1-to-1 messages, SMS sequences, and automated follow-ups. That's how you send 23.5 billion emails in a year.

Sales

Pipeline Management

Visual pipeline showing where every lead stands. Move deals through stages, set tasks, and stop losing business to forgotten callbacks.

Revenue

Keap Pay

Integrated payment processing via PayPal, Stripe, WePay, and more. Invoices with payment links. Automated reminders. $2.6 billion processed in 2021 through this.

New

Keap Ultimate

Premium tier launched January 2024 with AI-powered features and a redesigned interface. Keap's bet on where small business software is heading.

Capture

Landing Pages

Built-in landing page builder for lead capture. Skip the third-party subscription when you already have the tool.

Scheduling

Appointments

Calendar sync and appointment scheduling for service businesses. Clients book, confirmations go out automatically.

Analytics

Reporting & Dashboards

Business performance analytics to see what's working and what's not. Revenue by campaign. Conversion by stage. The data your decisions need.

The Money Story

$207M Raised. $80M Exit. The Math Doesn't Lie.

Keap's financial arc is the kind of thing business school professors love to deconstruct. They raised over $207 million from some of the most respected investors in venture capital. Goldman Sachs came in with $54 million in 2013. Bain Capital added $55 million in 2014. By 2022, analysts pegged the company's valuation somewhere around $786 million.

Then came the recalibration. The SMB SaaS market compressed. Larger players with enterprise distribution moved downstream. HubSpot kept dropping its price. Keap's revenue, which peaked at $100 million in 2017, dipped to $63 million in 2022 before clawing back toward $85-99 million by 2024.

In October 2024, Thryv Holdings - a publicly traded SMB software company - acquired Keap for $80 million in cash. The transaction closed October 31, 2024. For Thryv, it was a strategic bolt-on: Keap's marketing automation sat cleanly alongside their existing small business SaaS stack. Thryv's Q4 2025 SaaS revenue was up 14.1% year-over-year, partly credited to Keap integration.

For Keap, it's a new chapter. For investors who backed the peak valuation - a lesson in what happens when the TAM stays the same but competition multiplies.

$207M+ Total Venture Capital Raised

~$786M Peak Estimated Valuation (2022)

$80M Acquisition Price (Oct 2024)

Timeline

24 Years. One Thread.

From a spare bedroom in Arizona to a $100M software business - and then through the sobering realities of a competitive SMB market - Keap's timeline is worth reading slowly.

2000-2001

The Spare Bedroom

Scott and Eric Martineau build the first version of the software to help their father's balloon business manage follow-up. Clate Mask joins. Infusion Software incorporated.

2013

Goldman Sachs Bets $54M

Series C closes. The company has become the go-to CRM for serious small business owners and is scaling fast. The IPO narrative begins.

2014

Bain Capital Adds $55M

Series D closes. Infusionsoft has blue-chip investors on both sides. The $786M valuation isn't far off at this pace of growth.

2017

$100M Revenue Peak

Infusionsoft hits $100 million in annual revenue. A milestone few SaaS companies reach. The team is 650+ strong.

Jan 2019

Goodbye Infusionsoft. Hello Keap.

The rebrand lands. The new name is shorter, cleaner, and targets a broader small business audience. The GitHub org stays "infusionsoft."

2021

$2.6B in Payments Processed

Keap Pay hits its stride. The integrated payment processing becomes a key differentiator over competitors who rely on third-party tools.

Jan 2024

Keap Ultimate Launches

AI-powered premium tier. Redesigned UX. Keap signals that it's not resting on the legacy Infusionsoft power-user base.

Oct 2024

Acquired by Thryv for $80M

All-cash transaction closes October 31. Keap becomes part of a combined SaaS platform serving 100,000+ small business subscribers.

Details Worth Knowing

The Keap File

The entire company traces back to a balloon business. Scott and Eric Martineau built the first version of the software because their father's shop had a follow-up problem. That one bedroom project became a platform that processed $2.6 billion in payments annually.

Despite a full rebrand to Keap in January 2019, the company's GitHub organization is still called "infusionsoft." The SDK lives at github.com/infusionsoft/keap-sdk. Branding is one thing. Repo names are forever.

Keap raised $207 million from Goldman Sachs and Bain Capital, reached an estimated valuation of ~$786 million in 2022 - and then sold for $80 million in 2024. The gap between peak valuation and exit price is one of the more striking outcomes in SMB SaaS history.

Keap's Facebook page has over 210,000 likes. That's an unusual number for a B2B SaaS product. It reflects the community of small business owners who treat the platform as genuinely central to how they work - not just a software subscription.

Keap markets itself aggressively as the "#1 HubSpot Alternative" for small businesses. The pitch is direct: HubSpot is too complex, too expensive, and built for enterprise teams. Keap is built for the owner who handles their own sales pipeline on nights and weekends.

87%+ of employees gave satisfaction ratings that qualified Keap for Great Place to Work certification in 2023 and 2024 - this during a period when the company was navigating both a product pivot and acquisition discussions. Not easy to sustain culture under those conditions.

Inside Keap

Seven Things They Actually Mean

Keap's seven core values are printed on the wall and, reportedly, taken seriously: We genuinely care. We own it. We learn always. We build trust. We check ego. We dream big. We win together.

The "check ego" value is notable for a company that spent years in the spotlight of Silicon Valley investment. Bain Capital and Goldman Sachs don't typically back companies run by people who are great at checking ego. That Keap chose to formalize it as a value suggests something deliberate about the founders' intent.

The company runs a hybrid model: local Chandler employees work in-office on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The rest of the team is distributed. This balance - structured office time without a five-day commute mandate - became a retention tool during the talent churn of 2021-2022.

Keap hosted its inaugural Ultimate Automator Awards at the Let's Grow Summit in Phoenix in August 2024 - recognizing customers who used automation in particularly creative or effective ways. It's a smart move: the users who get the most out of the platform become the best sales proof.

Vision

"To help 1 million small businesses worldwide by 2030."

- Keap's stated vision. 31,500 down. A long way to go.

87% employee satisfaction during an acquisition year. That's worth pausing on.