• by David Goetzl  @dgoetzl, April 19, 2010

Bruce Biegel, a managing director at Winterberry Group, is giving an opening keynote at the MediaPost Email Insider Summit. An investment banker, he says there have 68 transactions in the email space since 2003.

The first phase involved the likes of Experian wanting to establish a foothold, for example, and acquiring CheetahMail in 2004. Large companies wanted to buy into the digital conversation, so to speak.

Next, Biegel said, came a “financing phase.� That helped Constant Contact go public.

That phase is still continuing, by the way, with ExactTarget, raising a massive amount in 2009. ExactTarget “won the lottery last year,� he said.

In the last two years "even in a very quiet M&A" market, companies began to acquire “capabilities,� which involved building out services such as social and mobile abilities, and international bases of operations.

"Frankly, that’s (all) what marketers should be looking from their (email service providers)," Biegel said.

The “capabilities� additions are going to lead to “email plus" in services from those ESPs.