Anatomy of a Merger: Mercatus and Stor.ai

What goes into a successful merger? For e-commerce solutions companies Mercatus and Stor.ai, the deal began with a July 2023 phone call from Galen Walters, then CEO of Stor.ai, to Sylvain Perrier, then president and CEO of Mercatus. Walters was in the midst of integrating two companies already: Relationshop, based just outside Houston, and Stor.ai, in Tel Aviv. Relationshop had acquired Store.ai just six months previously. 

On the call, Walters shared his admiration for Mercatus not only as a technology company, but also as a leader in developing enterprise software solutions for several large grocery retail chains in the United States. He additionally shared his view of a vibrant grocery industry dealing with enormous challenges and opportunities. The pandemic had increased demand for online grocery shopping and fueled the rise of third-party marketplace providers like Instacart and DoorDash, and even with the return to in-store visits, the convenience factor of online grocery shopping had remained a draw. According to Walters, while third-party marketplaces can provide grocers quick access to e-commerce, this carries its own risks, including loss of control, dilution of brand, and contractual handcuffs.

Walters identified a clear opportunity in the market. “Our vision is to enable profitable growth for grocers through technology they own and control and that offers maximum convenience to online customers,” he told Progressive Grocer in February of this year. “Regional grocers and independents are making a massive shift to SaaS to run their digital businesses. To simplify the digital transformation, they would prefer to deal with a single expert to consolidate their commerce needs.”

Following that fateful phone call, the decision to merge came about quickly once the parties involved realized the net benefit to retail clients on both sides. The legal process itself took about six months to finalize. During that time, multiple meetings and conversations took place among senior members of the merger team regarding the integration of people, processes and technology systems, with a keen focus on gaining efficiencies.

The decision to call the merged company Mercatus stemmed from the fact that the brand is well recognized in the North American market, especially among regional grocers and supermarkets. 

Further, Mercatus’ specialization in providing tailored solutions for the grocery retail sector made it a notable name among businesses looking for innovative ways to connect with their customers digitally. The brand has also been a strong and consistent publisher of custom e-grocery insights in partnership with Brick Meets Click for a number of years. 

As a result of the merger, which closed in January 2024, Walters, now CEO of Mercatus (Perrier has become president of North America, COO), noted that “clients can expect to see a continuation of rapid innovation.” The merged company now has more than 225 employees on three continents, with product and software engineers in Canada, the United States, Israel and Vietnam all focused on faster product development throughput. According to Walters, teams are working on delivering deeper business intelligence, stronger search relevancy, the ability to self-manage multichannel marketing campaigns, and tighter emulation of digital promotions and loyalty programs.

“The team based in Toronto has years of experience and knowledge working closely with large regional grocers to implement enterprise grade web and mobile commerce solutions,” he observed. “On the Relationshop side, the team in Houston is expert at developing advanced personalization solutions. Add to this the independent grocer product line developed by the team in Tel Aviv, and you have a winning combination that can address the connected commerce needs grocers of any size, anywhere in the world.”

One example of the innovations arising from the merger was the recent integration of Relationshop’s advanced personalization solution for grocery e-commerce, AisleOne, which rolled out in February 2024. “AisleOne makes it easy for retailers to bring together multiple data sources to create a single view of their customers, segment customers by demographic and behavioral data, and create targeted lists for personalized campaigns,” explained Randy Crimmins, president, AisleOne. 

Thanks to the merger and this emphasis on innovation, “[t]he new Mercatus is now well positioned to be the leading end-to-end commerce platform enabling grocers of all sizes,” asserted Walters.