Mailchimp is selling itself to Intuit in a transaction valued at $12 billion. The deal is a coup not only for companies that eschew venture capital backing — Mailchimp is famous for its bootstrapping history — but also for the city of its founding, Atlanta.
Mailchimp’s mega-exit comes in the same year that fellow Atlanta-based startup Calendly raised a massive $350 million round that valued the technology company north of $3 billion, per Crunchbase data.
The two companies underscore how possible it is to build large startups in markets outside of the traditional collection of cities most associated with technology entrepreneurship in the United …
