Buy!
"Underdog grows into possible buyout target"
A possible buyout target? The way things have been going the last few years, I suspect that being bought out is the very aim of the company. Well, perhaps not the company itself but most likely the investors.
It takes time to build a company like this to start seeing real return of investment and a big IPO and investors generally want to see money far sooner so buyouts are a great option for them. The company itself is 5 years old but serious funding is about 3 years old now I think so in the next year or so, I'd expect the investors to want to start seeing that pay off.
The pattern that has been repeated time and again for tech company 'startups' is one of massive injection of venture capital funds followed by fast expansion nationally and, after another round or two, globally. They are then snapped up for handsome sums by one of the existing large players who evidently find it easier to buy technology and market share rather than creating their own.
So, they are definitely a buyout target - the question is who.
In a way, it's like draft time in the various codes, where professional analysts and avid amateurs map out which rookies will be snapped up by which club, matching the needs and the talents - often with uncanny accuracy. You see the tech equivalent often in these pages, saying that such and such a company doesn't have a developed (e.g.) de-duplication technology* so will be looking to acquire some company or other to add this functionality in.
And happy new year mate.
* - As was the case with Kempel's previous company, Diligent, which was bought by IBM for their dedupe tech.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
