Citrix to acquire WFH solutions provider Wrike for $2.25 bn; Q4 SaaS revenue up 39%

Fort Lauderdale, Florida based cloud computing major Citrix announced on Wednesday that it will acquire SaaS (software as a solution) workspace solutions Wrike for $2.25 billion in cash.

The acquisition, which is expected to add muscle to Citrix’s virtualization offerings, is seen as a part of the overall strategy to cater to the distributed work environments.

 The company has been strengthening its SaaS based offerings for the last few quarters. In its recent Q4 2020 results, the company said its SaaS based revenues were up by 39% as compared to the previous year.

The acquisition of  San Jose, California based Wrike is expected to close in the first half of 2021. Wrike is owned by Vista Equity Partners, which had bought it in 2018.

“Together, Citrix and Wrike will deliver the solutions needed to power a cloud- delivered digital workspace experience that enables teams to securely access the resources and tools they need to collaborate,” David Henshall, president and CEO, Citrix, said. 

The acquisition will bring together Citrix’s digital work platform, the Citrix Workspace and Wrike’s work management solution into a single entity. This will give its customers more tools to work efficiently and help Citrix with its strategy to become a SaaS based work platform as it moves away from legacy subscriptions.

Citrix also said that the acquisition will boost revenue opportunities in lines such as marketing, professional services and HR. Wrike will also get access to Citrix’s ecosystem partners and help scale up their solutions.

Founded in 2003 by CEO Andrew Filev, Wrike currently employs close to 1,000 workers and caters to close to 18,000 customers globally.

Filev will lead the Wrike team post acquisition and will report to Citrix CFO and executive VP Arlen Shenkman.

“Together, we will unlock the workspace of the future, truly transforming the work experience and equipping people with an innovative set of solutions,” Filev said about the deal.

Citrix said that it expects Wrike to grow at 30% for its SaaS recurring revenue in 2021.

In its recent fourth quarter earnings report for the year 2020, Citrix reported that its SaaS annual recurring revenue was at $725 million, up by 39% as compared to the previous year, while its yearly subscription bookings were at 75%, as compared to 62% in the fiscal year 2019.

For the fourth quarter, subscription bookings formed 85% of total product bookings, as compared to 69% in the corresponding quarter last year.

According to a study by cloud based company Service Now, 52% of employees and 64% of C-suite executives said they would prefer to continue working from home even post the pandemic.

Many other IT firms, including SalesForce, IBM and others have introduced solutions to aid remote work.

Read: Salesforce bets on return to-workplace solutions market with Work.com