On Sunday evening, it was announced that Escrow.com is going to be acquired by Freelancer.com. There were quite a few reader comments about the proposed acquisition, including some concerns about the proposed acquisition and expectations for after the acquisition is completed.
This afternoon, Escrow.com President and Managing Director Brandon Abbey shared some comments about the acquisition and what lies ahead for the company. I asked Brandon if I could share his comments here, and he gave me permission to publish them:
“The past two days at Escrow.com have been more than exciting for me and our extremely dedicated team. Imagine the thrill of going from a small privately held company to becoming part of a well-established public company with a market cap of $450M and over 400 employees. I would have to say my resource constraints from a marketing and product development standpoint have been dramatically changed. After meeting with Matt Barrie and his executive team I want to assure you this is Escrow.com’s opportunity to become a major player in the Internet payments space. There will be no change in staff and all our employees will have significant opportunities for personal and professional growth. Process improvements have already been discussed for our Domain community products. We will continue to provide the most safe and secure transaction management system available on the Internet.”
I am glad to hear that there don’t seem to be any major changes that will impact how the business operates, especially the plans to retain the Escrow.com staff. There has been concern that the acquisition is going to cause an increase in prices for escrow services. My presumption is that Freelancer.com didn’t acquire Escrow.com simply to raise prices and drive more revenue, as some people have predicted. Commenting on this speculation, Brandon said, “Customers should expect enhanced products, not increased prices. This is a win/win/win transaction for our customers, our employees and Freelancer.”
Ron Jackson published an extensive article with more information about the acquisition. It’s well worth a read when you have a chance.
I think the comprehensive marketing strategy of freelancer will be an advantage for escrow in this new acquisition because I have dealt with the former before.
It seems that in past few years Freelancer brought all their competitors, except Elance and Odesk, who were forced to merge to cope.
It is interesting that Freelancer does not stop at acquiring competitors, but they moved to acquire complementary services such as warrior forum and now escrow.