BravoA customer relationship management company headquartered in Paris, now a unicorn – a startup valued at over $1 billion. The startup has raised €500 million in fresh equity funding ($583 million), which will finance its efforts to compete with big players like HubSpot and Salesforce, not only in Europe, but also on their home turf in the US.
Formerly known as SendinBlue, Bravo 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 Reflecting its broader product scope. That move paid off. Bravo now has over 600,000 customers, ranging from small business owners to large clients such as Carrefour, eBay and H&M.
The US currently represents 15% of Bravo’s revenue — one of its three largest markets, along with France and Germany. That’s not enough for CEO Armand Theberg, who plans to spend some of the funds on US growth.
“It’s 50% of the world market, so it should be 50% of our revenue,” the French entrepreneur told TechCrunch.
Revenue division concerns aside, the numbers trend upward.
After joining the Centaur club in 2023 when it surpassed $100 million in annual recurring revenue, Bravo has now ticked off a goal of surpassing €200 million ARR in 2025 and aims to reach €1 billion in 2030, Thiberg revealed to TechCrunch.
It still lags far behind Salesforce, which is now taking aim $41.55 billion In terms of revenue for 2026. The French company hopes that becoming a unicorn will help boost its notoriety, thanks to the status, and also to the equity funding, which comes in addition to the debt Bravo previously secured. (Bravo claims “double-digit EBITDA margins.”)
These funds have already supported Bravo’s plan Invest €50 million in AI More than five years, and to use acquisition (from 11th) as one of its growth levers. The 1,000-employee company now intends to use its new funding to support these two efforts, in addition to its push into the United States, on which it plans to spend 100 million euros, according to a press release.
Bravo did not disclose the exact valuation resulting from its latest round. It gave more details in its updated cap table.
Rumors were describing the deal As is the acquisition of BravoBut Thiberg said Bravo’s management and employees still hold the largest stake (26%) while new entrants General Atlantic and Oakley Capital each bought 25%; Current investors BPFrance and Bridgepoint each hold 24% Series A lead Partech completed his departure.
It creates a global cap table that reflects Bravo’s stated ambition “to create a global European CRM leader capable of competing with US players through product excellence.” In other words, not by playing the European sovereignty card.
For Thiberg, “Whoever has the best product wins, and it’s a competition to see who can create the product that is both the most complete and the easiest to use.” There is an inherent excitement in doing this, and catering to both 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, Bravo has expanded significantly beyond its email marketing core. Although 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 communications across email, SMS, WhatsApp, live chat, push notifications and even integrated sales calls.
These functionalities are also increasingly augmented by AI, either through integration or in-house. Expanding this feature set is one driver of Bravo’s M&A strategy, but inorganic growth from buying competitors in core markets is another. With acquisitions expected to contribute 45% of its €1 billion revenue target for 2030, the company’s shopping list should be extensive.