New unicorn Brevo raises $583 million to challenge CRM giants

Brevo, a CRM company based in Paris, is now a unicorn — a startup valued at more than $1 billion. The startup has raised €500 million in new equity funding ($583 million), which will fund its efforts to compete with bigger players like Hubspot and Salesforce, not only in Europe, but also on its home turf in the US.

Brevo, formerly known as Sendinblue, started in 2012 as an email marketing solution for small businesses. The company expanded into the mid-market and repositioned itself with a new name to reflect its wider product range. This move paid off. Brevo now has more than 600,000 customers, from small business owners to larger clients like Carrefour, eBay and H&M.

The United States currently represents 15% of Prevo’s revenue, and is one of its three largest markets along with France and Germany. That’s not enough for CEO Armand Theberge, who plans to spend some of the funding on US growth.

“This represents 50% of the global market, so it should be 50% of our revenue,” the French businessman told TechCrunch.

Regardless of revenue split concerns, the numbers are trending upward.

After joining the Centaur club in 2023 when its annual recurring revenue surpassed $100 million, Brevo has now set its goal of exceeding €200 million in ARR in 2025 ahead of schedule, and aims to reach €1 billion in 2030, Thiberge revealed to TechCrunch.

That’s still a long way from Salesforce, which is now targeting $41.55 billion in revenue for 2026. The French company is hoping that being a unicorn will help boost its notoriety, thanks to the status itself, as well as equity financing, which comes on top of debt previously taken on by Brevo. (Brevo claims a double-digit “EBITDA margin.”)

These funds have already supported Prevo’s plans to invest €50 million in AI over five years, and use acquisitions (11 so far) as one of its growth vehicles. The 1,000-employee company now intends to use its new funding to support these two endeavors, along with its efforts in the United States, on which it plans to spend more than 100 million euros, according to a press release.

Brevo did not disclose the exact valuation resulting from its latest round. It has given more details about the updated cap table.

Rumors described the deal as Brevo being acquired, but Thiberge said Brevo’s management and employees still owned the majority stake (26%) while newcomers General Atlantic and Oakley Capital each bought 25%. Existing investors Bpifrance and Bridgepoint retained 24% each, while Series A lead Partech completed its exit.

This creates a global schedule that reflects Brevo’s stated ambition to “build a leading global European CRM company capable of competing with US players through product differentiation.” In other words, not by playing the European sovereignty card.

For Thiberge, “Whoever has the best product wins, and it’s a race to see who can make the most complete and easiest-to-use product.” There is an inherent tension in doing this, and in meeting the needs of middle market companies and very small businesses. “I’m not saying it’s easy every day […] But for us, this combination has been incredibly successful.

To serve this diverse audience, Brevo has expanded significantly beyond its email marketing roots. Although it still competes with Mailchimp in this space, the company now offers a comprehensive platform with marketing automation, CRM, customer data management, communication via email, SMS, WhatsApp, live chat, push notifications, and even integrated sales calls.

These functions are also increasingly enhanced by AI, either through integrations or internally. Expanding this feature set is one driver of Brevo’s M&A strategy, but inorganic growth from buying competitors in key markets is another. Acquisitions are expected to contribute 45% of the €1 billion revenue target for 2030, and the company’s shopping list should be extensive.