New unicorn Brevo raises $583M to challenge CRM giants

Brevo, a customer relationship management company headquartered in Paris, is now a unicorn — a startup valued at more than $1 billion. The startup raised €500 million in fresh equity funding ($583 million), which will fund its efforts to compete with larger players such as Hubspot and Salesforce not just in Europe, but also on their home turf in the U.S.

Formerly known as Sendinblue, Brevo started out in 2012 as an email marketing solution for small businesses. The company expanded into mid-market and repositioned itself with a new name reflecting its broader product scope. That move paid off. Brevo now has more than 600,000 customers, ranging from small business owners to larger clients such as Carrefour, eBay, and H&M.

The U.S. currently represents 15% of Brevo’s revenue — one of its three largest markets along with France and Germany. That’s not enough for CEO Armand Thiberge, who is planning to spend some of the funding on U.S. growth.

“That’s 50% of the global market, so it should be 50% of our revenue,” the French entrepreneur told TechCrunch.

Revenue split concerns aside, the numbers are trending upwards.

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

That’s still far behind Salesforce, which is now targeting $41.55 billion in revenue for 2026. The French company hopes being a unicorn will help boost its notoriety, thanks to the status itself, and also to the equity funding, which comes in addition to debt that Brevo had previously secured. (Brevo claims “double-digit EBITDA margin.”)

These coffers have already supported Brevo’s plans to invest €50 million in AI over five years, and to use acquisitions (11 to date) as one of its growth levers. The 1,000-employee company now intends to use its new funding to support these two endeavors, alongside its push in the U.S., on which it plans to spend over €100 million, according to a press release.

Brevo didn’t disclose the exact valuation resulting from its latest round. It did give more details on its updated cap table.

Rumors had described the deal as Brevo getting acquired, but Thiberge said Brevo’s management and employees still hold the largest share (26%) while new entrants 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 makes for a global cap table that mirrors Brevo’s stated ambition to “build a global European CRM leader capable of competing with U.S. players through product excellence.” In other words, not through playing the European sovereignty card.

For Thiberge, “whoever has the best product wins, and it’s a race to see who can make the product that is both the most complete and the easiest to use.” There’s an inherent tension to doing this, and to catering both to mid-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 significantly expanded beyond its email marketing roots. While it still competes with Mailchimp in that space, the company now offers an all-in-one platform with marketing automation, CRM, customer data management, and communication across email, SMS, WhatsApp, live chat, push notifications, and even integrated sales calls.

These functionalities are also increasingly boosted by AI, either through integrations or in-house. Expanding this feature set is one driver of Brevo’s M&A strategy, but inorganic growth from buying competitors in key markets is the other. With acquisitions expected to contribute 45% of its €1 billion revenue target for 2030, the company’s shopping list should be extensive.