Roby Brock: Welcome to the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal Report. I'm your host, Roby Brock. Today we'll hear more about a big tech company acquisition in Fayetteville. AcreTrader, founded and led by Carter Malloy, sold this week to a private equity firm in Minnesota. Malloy joins us to discuss what this means for the region in today's Northwest Arkansas Business Journal Report.
All right. Joining me now, Carter Malloy. He is the CEO of AcreTrader, and they've done a big deal this past week. So, Carter, congratulations. Welcome to the program, and tell everybody what went down.
Carter Malloy: Thanks, Roby. We're really excited. AcreTrader was acquired — we announced it this week. It was acquired by a private equity and private credit company in the world of agriculture companies called Proterra. They manage just shy of $3.5 billion of assets. And most importantly, they're wonderful people. They've been a great partner to us and folks that we are really excited to work with going forward.
Brock: Tell me a little bit about how the relationship developed. When did you first meet them, and how did this get to the point where they inquired and were successful in purchasing you?
Malloy: The world of farmland is a relatively small one, so a lot of folks know each other. We were happy to have gotten to know the Proterra guys and to be able to do something cool with them. We're really excited for the AcreTrader team and what they'll be up to next.
I will be staying with Acres.com. There are about 60 people that work here at Acres focused on complete land intelligence. We're really excited about the split and ultimately view it as a great outcome for the customers, the employees, and both companies.
Brock: Of course, the question mark for many people will be what happens to all those AcreTrader employees. Do they stay in Fayetteville? Do they still keep their jobs?
Malloy: Yes and yes. They are here in Fayetteville. They are our good friends. They are across the street now rather than inside the same office, but other than that, they are all still very excited to come to work every day with some new business partners.
Brock: Tell me what you'll be focusing your attention on now. You'll go to Acres.com, which is different, but you might also have other things in store. Because if I know you, you're not going to sit still.
Malloy: No, I'm going to try to stay focused on Acres.com for the time being. We're really excited. The business is growing incredibly fast. We're doing some amazing things within the world of data and data specific to land. It's a really exciting year in front of us that I can't wait to get to work on.
Brock: Just for people who might not know what Acres.com does, give us a brief overview.
Malloy: Acres.com is a platform for anyone that deals with land. Most often that is folks who are transacting land — buying, selling, or evaluating land. They can go to Acres and use our mobile application or our enterprise-grade web tool to pull together all the things they need to know about a piece of land — not just who owns it and what it sold for, but what are the boundaries, what is the topography, what kind of zoning am I in, do I have sewer access, and so on. It's really an all-in-one home for your land business for those in the world of land.
Brock: Last question for you and we'll wrap this up. I'm assuming you're going to make some money off of this AcreTrader deal. Do you think you'll put that into Acres.com? Do you think you might have another investment vehicle in terms of entrepreneurship? Or is this the kids' college fund that we just secured?
Malloy: We are all focused really heavily on Acres.com and pressing forward with that business. So, a lot to come there in the coming weeks and months.
Brock: We hope you will share with us when new things unfold with Acres.com. Again, congratulations to you and AcreTrader for building that business from scratch and getting it to where it is today. It's a huge employer, a big tech firm, and obviously big in the ag space. Thank you so much for being with us, Carter.
Malloy: Thank you, Roby. We appreciate your support over the years.
Brock: That's Carter Malloy, founder of AcreTrader and Acres.com. You can read more about this story at nwabusinessjournal.com.
If you didn't attend our Forty Under 40 event in Rogers this week, you missed a good one. We not only honored 40 outstanding young business leaders, but we heard a great motivational speech from Shelley Simpson, CEO of J.B. Hunt. She's a previous Forty Under 40 honoree, and she explained what the prestigious distinction did for her leadership skills. She issued an interesting challenge to our honorees this year.
You can read a recap of her speech and learn more about our honorees at nwabusinessjournal.com.
That's all for this edition of the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal Report. I'm Roby Brock. We'll see you next time.
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