Techstars Atlanta’s portfolio has another successful exit to its name.
Punchlist, a SaaS startup that graduated from Techstars Atlanta in 2021, has been acquired by Atlanta-based digital marketing agency Marketwake.
Integrating into the agency world is a full circle moment for Punchlist, which grew out of founder and previous CEO Pete Bernardo’s experience scaling his career in the agency world. The no-code, Grammarly-style platform provides a “creative layer” over any document, landing page, PDF, or powerpoint, allowing collaborators across teams and organizations to provide visual, streamlined, and real-time feedback. That is crucial when agencies are looking to get constructive feedback from clients.
Since its founding in 2018, Punchlist has brought on 13,000 users from 63 countries. It raised over $2 million in venture capital, with its largest seed round coming from lead investor Overline VC in 2021.
“The Punchlist platform delivers strong customer value by helping teams close the loop on creative feedback, removing friction and errors throughout the process,” said Sean O’Brien, Managing Partner at Overline, in a statement. “We have known the Marketwake team since their inception, and we are thrilled to see Punchlist find a home with one of Atlanta’s top agencies.”
Financial details of the deal were not disclosed and the team did not respond to Hypepotamus’ request for comment. But the Marketwake team said that the acquisition shows the agency’s “dedication to eliminating common workflow obstacles in the pursuit of creating better work and better results.”
Details related to the platform moving forward will be released on Marketwake’s blog.
Marketwake itself is well-known within the Atlanta technology landscape. Founder Brooke Beach MacLean has built up an impressive client roster which includes local names like Venture Atlanta, Ware2Go (A UPS Company), The Players’ Lounge, Sonar, Orpheus Brewing, MessageGears, and BIP Wealth.
The Acquisition Landscape
Punchlist is the latest startup that went through Techstars Atlanta’s accelerator program to reach an exit. Previously, Atlanta-based Popmenu acquired Atlanta-based Order Nerd in October of 2021 following Order Nerd’s completion of the Techstars Atlanta program.
Startup acquisition news has been pretty quiet over the last year, as stock market volatility and macroeconomic uncertainty has continued throughout the year. But there have been small glimmers of hope across the Southeast. Last week Makeswift, an Atlanta-based website startup, was acquired by BigCommerce Holdings, Inc. (NasdaqGM:BIGC) for $9 million and Charlotte-based Payzer was acquired by Wex for $250 million.
