Company: Magisto
Acquired by: Vimeo, 2019
About: An online video editor with a web application and mobile app for automated video editing and production, aimed at consumers and businesses. AI is deployed to make video editing fast and simple.
Magisto was founded about 10 years ago, and we’ve been working with Nextage since 2014, when we ramped up. They took care of all our financials, since we didn’t have an internal controller or CFO, and they managed everything related to our finances – salaries, payments, audits, forecasting, fundraising, FP&A, etc. In addition, they helped us raise funds from VCs and others, and they also managed the finances of our daughter company in the U.S. for us.
Eventually, they were instrumental in the acquisition, and we worked very closely with Dvora Nuriel, our Nextage CFO, and Meital Amos, our Nextage controller, on the entire process over the course of 2 years. If I were to form a new startup, I’d be glad to work with Dvora and Meital again.
Both our finance and legal teams were from outside our company during the M&A. And as an acquisition is a finance and legal-heavy process, with a tremendous amount of due diligence, Nextage played a key role from the start, as they were part of our financial team from the very beginning. They were active across the whole financial due diligence process – they organized and provided all the financial statements. We had a very long due diligence process and it was extremely demanding in terms of hours, amount of material required, and other aspects, and they did a great job. They worked closely with the legal teams and the acquiring parties, and the process required a lot of attention to detail and demanded a lot of work from both Meital and Dvora. I think they did an amazing job.
We’ve had a mix – we’ve been both B2B and B2C. In B2C, there are a couple of core things you have to work with, such as the stores (Apple, Google, Facebook, etc.). There is specific knowledge related to working with these stores and partners, and specific finance issues related to them. It’s a proficiency that you gain all the time. In fact, it was good for us to be working with Nextage, since they have other customers and have a wide range of experience, so we were able to gain from their expertise and knowledge and see what works and what doesn’t work – that was very helpful.
We are still working with them after the acquisition, in different areas. We continue to get very good service from them and we’re happy working with them. Personally, I really enjoy working with our Nextage team. It goes beyond the financials – it’s the people. I can say that we’re friends now. Though some of the process we went through was extremely demanding and stressful, we always had a very good working relationship. It was really a very good experience working with them.
