The StartUp Blog at PartnerUp

I’m thrilled to announce today that PartnerUp has been acquired by Deluxe Corporation (NYSE: DLX), a Twin Cities-based Fortune 1000 company that offers small businesses products and services to help owners manage, grow and promote their businesses.

So what does all of this mean for you? Well, on the one hand it means nothing. I’ll still be running the business, the entire PartnerUp team is staying on and will still be working to grow the business and help our customers, and together we’re still going to provide you with all of the useful tools and content that we have been all along.

On the other hand, Deluxe is presenting us with the opportunity to give you even more. Deluxe has been around for more than 90 years, generates $1.6 Billion in annual revenue, employs more than 7,000 people, and has more than 6 million small business customers.

With these additional resources from Deluxe, we’re going to do things bigger and better, and we’re going to keep doing them just for you without changing our focus one bit. In addition, by welcoming Deluxe’s more than 6 million small-business customers to the PartnerUp community, we hope to greatly boost the number of people, opportunities and resources that you’ll be able to find on PartnerUp.

Why did we decide to sell PartnerUp? The answer is mostly Lee Schram, the CEO of Deluxe, and the team that he’s assembled. In my career, I’ve had an opportunity to meet a lot of CEOs and leadership teams, but I’ve never met a management team who so passionately recognizes where they want to be, has such a strong sense of urgency, and is willing to commit the resources necessary to get there. Lee and his team truly understand PartnerUp and our model, and their excitement about our business was one of the key factors in our decision to sell to Deluxe.

This is an exciting time both for everyone here at PartnerUp. We look forward to taking things to the next level here and working hard to give you the tools and resources that help you do the same with your company.