E-mail services provider Goodmail Systems is to cease operations this month, following the collapse of takeover talks with an unnamed buyer.
The firm was launched in 2003 as a ‘premium class’ of commercial email that assures recipients of a message’s authenticity and a sender’s legitimacy. CertifiedEmail was presented to email users with a blue-ribbon envelope icon indicating trusted status.
Advertisers had to pay a fee to use the service, which Googmail said works out as ‘a fraction of a penny’ for each CertifiedEmail sent, while individual recipients never had to pay for CertifiedEmail.
Last week, Goodmail sent out mail to all their customers announcing they are ceasing operations and taking all their token generators offline as of 5pm pacific on February 8th.
The email said the company is “working with our ISP partners to accommodate a transition period for your IP addresses so as to decrease the effort required for warm up. In the meantime, please begin to transition your traffic off CertifiedEmail.”
Speaking to DM News, Daniel Dreymann, co-founder and CEO of Goodmail, said the biggest reason for the shutdown was an aborted acquisition attempt by a firm he would only call a “Fortune 500 company.”
Dreymann said he could not reveal more information about the one-time suitor because he is bound by a nondisclosure agreement.
“We were on track to be acquired,” he said. “We got a terms sheet, and they left us at the altar at the last minute.”
The US-based company launched in the UK in 2007, backed by partnerships with AOL Yahoo, which allowed e-mails sent by Goodmail to be certified on the Yahoo Internet services provider.
However, the Yahoo deal ended in early 2010. As a result, Goodmail lost Yahoo’s broad customer network. Goodmail had a business model dependent on the number of people receiving its certified e-mails.
“This merger was supposed to address the issue,” Dreymann said. “But when it did not conclude, I had no other solution but to shut down. At the end of the day, I could not sustain the losses.”
The company worked with hundred of high profile clients, including White House, Target and Williams-Sonoma.
www.goodmailsystems.com
