Nonprofit software vendor Blackbaud is buying Washington, D.C.-based Everfi, for $750 million in cash and stock. The deal is expected to add about $120 million to Blackbaud’s 2022 revenue.

The buy will push Blackbaud well past $1 billion ub revenue for 2020  as early this month the company reiterated 2021 revenue guidance of $920 million, a less than one-percent increase from $913.2 million for 2020. Everfi is described as having more than 45 million learners and is also said to educate corporate partners so they can measure the impact of environmental, social and governance and corporate social responsibility goals According to Blackbaud’s prepared statement, “EVERFI’s strong presence in the K-12 public school space complements Blackbaud’s strong presence in the K-12 private school and higher education markets. The purchase price is comprised by $450 million in cash and 3,844,423 shares of common stock, worth about $300 million. Blackbaud is supplying the cash through new borrowings and cash-on-hand. 

 Payments vendor Paya has acquired Clarkston, Wash.-based VelocIT Business Solutions. Terms were not disclosed.

Founded in 2018, the company fields VelocIT Connect payments which integrates with Sage 100 cloud and Acumatica. “We are excited to welcome the VelocIT team to Paya as we look to expand and accelerate Paya’s growth within the ERP channel,” said Paya’s CEO Jeff Hack said in a prepared statement. The acquired company also markets its own Clover Point of Sale and the NCC Reflection POS and offers custom development services for Sage and Acumatica. Paya said it will have additional discussion about the deal when it reports its 2021 financial results. The company has not yet posted that date on its website.

Visma, which keeps mopping up European software companies, turned in growth of 19.5 percent, for the year ended December 31. Norway-based Visma, which acquired 42 companies last year, has already purchased five companies this year.

The company had approximately $2.6 billion in revenue for 2021. Visma reported 80 percent of revenue now comes from cloud revenue and services.  Before-tax profit rose 81.3 percent to roughly $140.7 million for the most recently completed year. Visma’s primary markets are the Nordics and Benelux but it entered Austria and Spain through acquisitions last year. Purchases were in the broad business software market, not just ERP, including payroll, HR, e-commerce, planning and healthcare scheduling. One the few ERP plays the vendor picked up was Holdred, a cloud software company in Spain. Visma had a significant investment of undisclosed size in September and said it would like try an IPO nest year to secure a list on the Oslo, Norway, stock exchange. In 2020, Warburg Pincus and TPG, invested more than $12 billion in stock and debt, acquiring minority ownership. Visma’s revenue for the fourth quarter was about $640 million, up 18 percent from the prior year’s corresponding period. The company’s four core business areas all had double-digit growth in the last quarter of 2021. Nordic revenue rose 29.7 percent to about $367 million for the fourth quarter. Despite a COVID-19 full lockdown in Benelux, revenue there increased 15.2 percent to approximately $107.million.

The departure of channel leader Geoff Ashley from Acumatica late last year has triggered some thoughts. What does the cloud software vendor need in its reseller base?

Accounting firms is the salient answer. Acumatica also needs larger resellers. The lack of accounting firms in the list of award winners last fall at Acumatica’s Partner Summit contrasts with those taking home trophies last year for Oracle NetSuite and Sage Intacct. There were no accounting firms among the Acumatica honorees in 2021 and out of 20 finalists for the awards to be announced next week, none are CPA firms, although the Mayer ERP Group recently grew out of one. NetSuite had three CPA firms receiving awards: RSM as Worldwide Solution Provider Partner of the Year and Eide Bailly a North American Partner of the Year, both having repeated several times. Joining them was Sikich, picking up an award for the Micro-Vertical Solution of the Year for its Life Science SuiteSuccess. Six out of eight Intacct award winners were accounting firms, including Baker Tilly as Intacct Partner of the Year, by virtue of buying AcctTwo and Armanino as VAR of the Year. There are a couple of issues here. The accounting firms are generally larger than non-CPA resellers. Four of the Top 10 of Bob Scott’s Top 100 VARs for 2021 are accounting firms—and six out of the Top 20. The larger ones also usually have more consulting resources and better developed specializations. And the obvious—the award winners are better at selling stuff than the rest of the base.

Lately, I have put myself on a reduced salt diet and started reading labels to see the percentage of the sodium for a person. It turned out I was justly oncerned about my favorite canned soup, whose listing of sodium read, “Eat this and die.”  

.... Prince Andrew, Duke of York, has resigned or been stripped of his military titles and other honors—it’s not clear which—to become the latest member of the Society of Former Royals. It’s the fairy tale story of a prince who became a frog. He is accused of being an overact friend of the late Jeffrey Epstein in trafficking young women. Andrew says it’s all a misunderstanding—he was doing field work for establishing his “Duke of York’s Home for Wayward Girls”. The old nursey rhyme is being updated: “The Duke of York had 10,000 girls…” … Earlier in this newsletter, I mentioned all the empty seats on the plane for my January 23 flight to Las Vega. I have to keep checking to make sure one of them is not in the flight cabin. … In sad celebrity news, it turns out Mickey Mouse was mistakenly sent to an experimental lab. ... Among the latest pandemic item is a report that Cannabis can help combat COVID-19. You can see the kids hanging out on the corner: “Honest, I’m just trying to keep from getting the virus.”

 Was watching reruns of the TV show “The Six-million Dollar Man” over the holidays.

Little known fact, the series ended when he was fully depreciated and sold for scrap. … I couldn’t find insurrection anniversary cards. The drug store was all sold out. I guess they were shoved aside  in the rush to take down the Christmas cards and put up the ones for Valentine’s Day.… Among the highly anticipated films for this year is Avatar 2. In this tragedy, the native population of the planet Pandora is wiped out by an introduced virus, as they have no immunity. Perhaps, the most honest title in moviedom will appear with the planned February 4 “Jackass Forever”. The now 50-year old star, Johnny Knoxville, well, is there really anything more to say? However, it is likely the opening son with be "I Won't Grow Up" from the musical "Peter Pan". … A popular holiday song has been updated for the times to “I saw daddy kissing Santa Claus”  to offer choice to those with different gender preferences …. If the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us anything it’s gut-wrenching crises can be an effective tool for weight loss. In other virus news, I see Carnival Cruises is offering its first “Pandemic Cruise”. The ship doesn’t go anywhere. Passengers board the ship and stay in their cabins for 10 days. … An update for the controversial, erotic movie “Last Tango in Paris” is being planned. In line with the trend toward brand name product placement, the new film will showcase the brand of butter used. ... I was thinking of posting my person pronouns as it/its/they/them/their just to watch people’s reactions.

The cyber currency slide is so bad I tried to give the Salvation Army bitcoin donations and they were rejected.

… Two self-driving cars got into a road rage incident last week in Manhattan as they fought over an empty parking spot on fifth avenue. Meanwhile, the auto-driven autos stacked up near New York City’s Port Authority terminal when the heavy pedestrian traffic meant the vehicles couldn’t find an opening acceptable to their safety algorithms for going through cross walk. … Sadly, Santa Claus, hampered by supply chain disruptions, elves with positive COVID tests and some quarantine requirements in a number of nations, has announced he will replace toy gifts with store coupons and gift cards. Actually, a large percent of children are likely to demand he continue that practice. … A guy at the bar asked if I had used the new deodorant for soldiers. “For soldiers?” “Well, it said it was for private parts.”  ... A local TV station is running a public service announcement about global warming, urging viewers to adopt polar bear club. I tried it but the blopdy thing ripped upf my house. … On QAnon TV today 1 pm ““Dead People Likely to Reappear” feature an interview, hopefully with John F. Kennedy Sr. and Jr.

The most interesting entry in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade was the QAnon float which had a projection of John F. Kennedy Jr. announcing his plans to return.

The highly awaited “Q” balloon failed to appear. It was reported it started attacking other balloons while waiting to move into line. Speaking of Macy’s the iconic Geoffrey the Giraffe is now with Macy’s with Toys R Us Online. It was revealed that after the failure of the Toys R Us chain, Jeffrey spent some time in rehab on the Isle of Lost Toys. … Hallmark has put together a slew of new movies for the holidays: A Sugary Christmas, The  Sick of Christmas Movie, A Golden Christmas 25 and Another Damned Christmas Movie… The move to end Britney Spears’ conservatorship was accompanied by another movement that went much less noticed. A handful of people who remember her 2001 performance with a python named Banana were outside the courthouse with “Free the Snake” placards. It hit me that with her father removed after years as a conservator, well, you thought holiday meals in your family were awkward. … With the Delta variant followed by the Omnicron variant, schools can use the COVID-19 outbreak to teach the Greek Alphabet. … The original TV show “CSI” has returned with a sequel “CSI: Los Vegas”. It is expected the franchise will expand with CSI North Pole in which Santa Claus doubles as a criminal investigator, aimed by the Elf Patrol.  He is highly efficient in law enforcement as “He sees when you are sleeping. He knows when y ou’re awake.” Etc.

The title of this special report "Reselling the Era of COVID" sounds even more relevant with the recent outbreak of the Omicron variant. But one thing is for sure, the move to the cloud was accelerated by the pandemic in a way no one could have anticipated.

It has not beneftied everyone in the midmarket who sells ERP software. But a large number of resellers and software publishers have benefited, even as they work around issued such as remote work. So within that framework, we are pleased to announce the 100 resellers who have been chosen as VAR Stars for 2021 and share some of their experiences of the last year.

Just what kind of year has it been for the mid-market reselling community? It depends.

For some, it was very tough, but for others, it was the best year in their history as demand for cloud products drove business. If you were in segments such as hospitality and restaurants, it was very hard, if you were in ecommerce, things have never been better. Overall, it was a year of great change with the accelerated shift to the cloud from on-premise applications and the forced move to remote work which is producnglasting changes.

So click the button below to find out who made Bob Scott’s Top 100 VARs for 2021 and many of their thoughts about the last year and the future

It has been a year like no other for ERP mid-market software VARs. But one thing has stayed the same–it is time to ready your submission for Bob Scott’s Top 100 VARs for 2021--and this week is your last chance to do sol.

The IRS just gave you extra time to submit your individual tax returns, so use the opportunity to be considered. Each year, we rank the biggest financial software VARs in the mid-market and  use the occasion to learn more about how the market has worked in the last year and talk about directions it is likely to take in the near future. To be a player, please ask for a submission form  and return your information as soon as possibleto bob.scott@pmg360.com

 The year 2020 has been Dickensian—the worst of times and best of times. For most of the population, the coronavirus has made this year probably the most awful in memory. But for many mid-market software resellers, the move of companies to the cloud as their workforces went to remote operations, meant 2020 has been a good to great year. The results are not uniform. For VARs in markets such as entertainment and hospitality, it was not great. However, if clients were able to conduct business remote, resellers could service them remotely and despite the difficulties, 2020 was fine. Bob Scott’s VAR Stars for 2020 faced the pandemic and many not only survived, they prospered.