SaaS Unicorn BrowserStack Acquires Germany-Based Bird Eats Bug For $20 Mn

SaaS unicorn BrowserStack has acquired Berlin-based enterprise tech platform Bird Eats Bug in a $20 Mn deal. 

While the company did not disclose the details of the transaction, an Economic Times report claimed that BrowserStack acquired the company in a cash-and-stock deal, with a commitment of future investment for product development.

Bird Eats Bug offers a SaaS platform that claims to help enterprises debug their codes up to 30% faster on average. With this acquisition, BrowserStack will leverage Bird Eats Bug’s tech stack to streamline bug reporting processes and eliminate fragmented toolchains in testing. 

As part of the deal, Bird Eats Bug has now been rebranded as “Bug Capture by BrowserStack”.

“By integrating Bug Capture’s approach to bug reporting into our platform, we’re boosting development teams’ productivity so they can focus more on building great products and less on managing the intricacies of the testing process,” said BrowserStack cofounder and CEO Ritesh Arora.

Commenting on the acquisition, Bird Eats Bug cofounder and CEO Dan Makarov said, “We’re truly excited about our joint future with BrowserStack… It’s hard to think of two products that would be a better fit. My cofounder, Jacky Chung, and I have been highly impressed by the quality of the team and their ambitious vision for Bird”.

Founded in 2020, Bird Eats Bug claims to have more than 30,000 users under its belt and last raised $1.65 Mn in seed funding round led by Nauta Capital in 2021. The Berlin-based company is BrowserStack’s fifth acquisition since 2020. The Ritesh Arora-led company previously acquired SaaS platforms Percy, AutomatePro, Nightwatch.js, and Quail.

Founded in 2011 by Arora and Nakul Aggarwal, BrowserStack offers a platform for software testing across various devices and browsers. The company claims to be profitable since its inception and has more than 15 products in its portfolio, 10 of which have been launched in the past 18 months.

BrowserStack last raised $200 Mn in a round led by US-based investment firm BOND in 2021, The funding round valued the company at $4 Bn. 

Notwithstanding this, the acquisition comes at a time when BrowserStack is embroiled in legal challenges. In April this year, Deque Systems sued BrowserStack in a US court alleging intellectual property theft.

BrowserStack’s Indian entity saw its standalone net profit jump 52% to INR 114 Cr in the financial year 2022-23 (FY23) from INR 75 Cr in the previous fiscal year. Operating revenue jumped 46% year-on-year (YoY) to INR 612 Cr in the fiscal year ended March 2023.