The founders of a reviews website launched on their kitchen table a decade ago have sold it to a US software giant in a multi-million dollar deal.
Callum McKeefery and his wife Nicole Albano have sold Leicester-based Reviews.io to New York-based e-commerce specialist AppHub.
Mr McKeefery joins the AppHub board as part of the deal and will stay on as CEO of Reviews.io.
Reviews.io was launched in 2012 and collects and publishes customer reviews for around 8,000 clients. It now has annual turnover of around £10 million, and almost 80 staff at offices in the UK, California, Berlin and Sydney.
The couple said the deal would give them more time and resources to look after their six-year-old son Hudson who has a rare and debilitating genetic condition.
Ms Albano already stepped back from the business in 2017 to focus on his care. The couple also have two older children and a baby on the way.
She said there were times when running the business while looking after their son had been so tough they had considered throwing it all in. Even so, making the decision to sell was incredibly hard.
She said: “This has been our baby for the last decade.
“When we started the business we struggled and for the first year or two didn’t take any wages out of it. The first 100 clients were the hardest to get because no-one wants to be the first to sign up to a new business, but then we started to gather momentum.
“The States was a tough nut to crack but now we have a really good operation there.
“I had to step away from the company when we were struggling for a diagnosis for our son – when we had some really scary times – but we’ve still made all the big decisions together.
“The decision to sell came down to having the freedom and finances to do whatever we can to help our son. We’re looking at gene therapy and if we hear there is a cure we want to be able to do it without hesitating.
“Nothing will change as far as the day-to-day running of the business goes – they are leaving Callum to it because he’s always had a really good feel for the business.”
Mr McKeefery said deciding to sell Reviews.io was something they wrestled with day and night, but it was a decision that was already partly made when Hudson was born.
He said: “Having a child with special needs limits the risks you are willing to take and in all honesty, we needed to take some chips off the table.
“We looked at various ways of doing this and eventually found AppHub. After several meetings spread out over 12 months we knew we had found the right partner.
“The team at AppHub are perfectly placed to help us take Reviews.io to the next level.
“It's a huge achievement for any start-up to be purchased, and one that myself and all the team are very proud of.”
He said he was very excited to be planning the next stage of the company’s growth, helped by funding from the new owners.
