Intuit is acquiring global newsletter and email marketing platform Mailchimp in a cash and stock deal valued at $12 billion. Intuit, which makes software products including TurboTax, says it plans to integrate Mailchimp with its QuickBooks accounting software to help small and medium-sized businesses acquire and retain customers, Intuit CEO Sasan Goodarzi said in a statement. Mailchimp has “a lot of customer data. We have all the purchase data,” Goodarzi told investors last week. The deal follows Intuit’s 2020 purchase of Credit Karma for $7.1 billion.

Mailchimp has 13 million total users globally, which includes 2.4 million monthly active users and 800,000 subscribing customers, according to Yahoo Finance, which ascribed to the company “70 billion contacts and 250-plus partner integrations.”

Mailchimp users vary in size from individuals to small business and all the way up to Fortune 100 companies, reports CNN. It was founded in 2001 in Atlanta, a geographic detail TechCrunch hailed “a win” for aspiring entrepreneurs everywhere, proving that valuable startups can spawn “outside of Silicon Valley and without venture capital help.”

Mailchimp has more than 1,200 employees company, according to co-founder and CEO Ben Chestnut.

TechCrunch asked, “Why is Intuit spending 10 percent of its market capitalization to buy an email marketing company?”

“We want to grow the company double-digits,” answered Goodarzi in an interview with Yahoo. “We want our operating income to grow faster than our revenue, and we want to put our capital to great use. Both Credit Karma and Mailchimp really allow the company to leap forward five to 10 years. They bring us capabilities that frankly, we have only experimented with, that we tried to build. What we realized is what they have done we could also do, but it would take us 10-plus years.”

“Mailchimp instantly brings a scaled presence in the front office with a broad product portfolio and $800 million plus in mostly recurring revenues,” said Jefferies analyst Brent Thill in support of the move. “The deal helps realize Intuit’s vision of becoming a complete platform for small businesses, spanning both front and back office.”

The Mailchimp purchase is expected to close next year, pending regulatory approval.