The Toronto-based development firm BNotions has been acquired by Symbility Solutions.
Announced Monday, the deal is worth $3.8 million in cash and stocks, plus addition options for current employees. The BNotions brand will live on, with the firm continuing client work and operating as a subsidiary of Symbility Solutions, a software insurance company.
The BNotions staff and management team will also remain with the company.
In a statement, Symbility Solutions CEO James Swayze said the acquisition was made with an eye to innovation. The insurance industry, he said, is being disrupted and carriers need to find new ways to connect in order to compete with tech companies entering the business, like Google and Amazon. Swayze is hoping BNotions will bring new ideas to the table.
“BNotions’ exposure to businesses outside the insurance industry will allow us to gain insights into the most advanced interactive environments, enabling us to lead our customers into these new areas,” he said. “BNotions will help Symbility strengthen our reputation as thought leaders and market disruptors in the industry.”
BNotions’ CEO Paul Crowe added, “As insurance products are increasingly looking to innovate and deepen their offerings such as delivering home and auto maintenance, or converging health and pharma care with fitness, the union of Bnotions’ proficiency in both technology and user experience design with Symbility’s subject matter – insurance – is powerful.”
BNotions was founded in 2008 and soon built a client roster that included big brands like TD, Indigo and The Score. It earned a reputation as an innovative company, landing its founder, Alkarim Nasser, on Marketing‘s Top 30 Under 30 in 2014.
Late last year Nasser left BNotions to act as head of product for a company he co-founded, Gallop Labs, which was incubated at BNotions then spun out as its own company.
