Stamps.com Buys Austin-based ShippingEasy for $55 Million

Stamps.com Tuesday announced its acquisition of Austin-based ShippingEasy for $55 million in cash.

ShippingEasy, which makes software to allow online retailers to organize, process, fulfill and ship their orders easily, relocated to Austin from Sydney, Australia in 2012 and is run by Katie May, an Austin native and serial entrepreneur. May has worked as head of marketing and product for Seek.com.au, which went public, according to her online profile at ShippingEasy. She then founded Kidspot, which sold to News Corp. in 2011. She earned her undergraduate degree in accounting and an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin.

ShippingEasy will operate as a wholly-owned subsidary of Stamps.com and will be led by its existing management team when the deal closes in July. ShippingEasy has 52 employees and expects revenue of $10 million this year, according to a recent Forbes article. The company also raised about $4 million, according to Forbes.

In addition to the $55 million in cash, Stamps.com has put in place some performance linked equity awards that could result in key management members receiving 87,000 shares of Stamps.com stock if they meet performance targets. Based on Stamps.com’s current share price of $91.90, that would result in about $8 million more in compensation.

ShippingEasy’s software integrates with more than 40 marketplaces, shopping carts and e-commerce platforms including eBay, PayPal, Amazon, Bigcommerce, Shopify and more.

“The acquisition of ShippingEasy represents a significant strategic investment in our e-commerce shipping business,” Ken McBride, Stamps.com chairman and CEO said in a news release. “E-commerce driven package shipping is our fastest growing segment and this acquisition will allow us to continue to accelerate our growth in this area. ShippingEasy adds an outstanding solution to our portfolio of products which will allow us to serve the needs of more customers, and will allow us to continue to solidify our leadership in e-commerce shipping.”

Stamps.com, based in El Segundo, Calif., provides postage and shipping software online to more than 650,000 customers.