A number of notable acquisitions and new funding rounds took place in the first week of February, including several transactions that were announced on February 3. Our roundup includes the newsmakers that successfully closed deals or raised fresh capital during the period, discussed in the summaries below.
RudderStack Raises $56 Million in Series B Round
RudderStack, the San Francisco-based provider of a platform for building customer data stacks, announced on February 2 it had raised $56 million in Series B funding to accelerate growth and help companies build the customer data infrastructure necessary to support clients. The funding round was led by Insight Partners, the New York-based global venture capital and private equity firm, with additional support provided by venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins and early-stage venture fund S28 Capital. To date, the company has raised a total of $82 million.
Soumyadeb Mitra, CEO and founder of RudderStack, said the company enables data engineers to build future-proof customer data infrastructure. The RudderStack platform is used today as a key component in customer data stacks to power the collection, enrichment, and activation of customer data.
Since its founding in 2019, RudderStack has enjoyed rapid growth. Last year, the company’s revenue and customer base expanded by more than 300% as it acquired new customers like footwear and apparel manufacturer Allbirds, wealth management and automated robo software provider Wealthfront, and home furnishings retailer Crate and Barrel.
Salesforce to Acquire Brazilian E-Commerce Firm Atonit
Salesforce, the global provider of enterprise customer relationship management (CRM) services based in San Francisco, announced on February 3 it had signed an agreement to purchase Brazilian e-commerce technology firm Atonit in a move to offer an online marketplace management solution for retailers.
The enterprise CRM titan is acquiring Atonit to enable brands to build and scale an online marketplace, while also providing infrastructure like reviews, payments, and messaging to facilitate a transaction.
Lidiane Jones, executive vice president and general manager of digital experiences at Salesforce, described commerce marketplace capabilities as being mandatory not only for customers hoping to connect vendors with their shoppers and buyers, but also for delivering consistent shopping experiences to drive customer satisfaction and loyalty. After acquiring Atonit, Jones said Salesforce customers will be empowered to grow revenue by garnering commissions and membership subscription revenue from vendors, growing shopping cart sizes, and expanding into new product categories with ease.
In a corporate blog, Atonit expressed excitement at being the first Brazilian-headquartered company to be acquired by Salesforce, and said the company built its solution on the Salesforce platform to provide a product that was easy to use and ready to scale.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the acquisition is expected to close in the first quarter of Salesforce’s fiscal year 2023, which ends on April 30, 2022.
LumApps to Acquire HeyAxel and Expand EX Platform
LumApps, the French-based provider of an employee experience (EX) platform, announced on February 3 that it had signed an agreement to acquire fellow French firm HeyAxel, the developer of a no-code solution for human resources (HR) automation and employee onboarding.
Financial terms of the transaction were not revealed, but the acquisition builds upon the continued growth of LumApps to accelerate the company’s delivery of personalized EX. Integrating the two companies will also enhance the employee journey roadmap of LumApps to include an omnichannel orchestration engine, broadcast capabilities, quizzes, surveys, and the HeyAxel out-of-the-box journey builder.
Moreover, the no-code platform of HeyAxel will enable HR managers to create specific journeys, such as those for onboarding or marking career milestones, said Arnaud Weiss, HeyAxel CEO and co-founder. The no-code tooling will also enable the development of additional prebuilt journeys, simplifying the task for enterprises to tailor employee journeys at each step, LumApps said in a statement.
LumApps raised $70 million in a Series C funding round in 2020.
Phenom Acquires EX Innovator Tandemploy
Phenom, the Pennsylvania-based provider of human resources (HR) technology, said on February 3 it had acquired Tandemploy, a Berlin-based HR tech company focused on solving EX-related challenges.
The amount of the transaction was not disclosed, but the acquisition enhances the capabilities of Phenom’s artificial intelligence (AI)-powered Talent Experience Management (TXM) platform and grows the company’s presence in Europe. Phenom will establish a second office in Germany, adding to its existing European operations in the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands, France, Italy, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.
The acquisition also allows Phenom to deploy the Tandemploy matching algorithm, which recommends pairings among peers, mentors, project leaders, and subject matter experts by analyzing skills-based data and individual goals. Furthermore, the internal mobility tools of Tandemploy will add functionality and enhance Phenom’s EX solution, a statement from Phenom said.
“This acquisition enables Tandemploy to reach a truly global audience while leveraging the vast coverage and functionality of Phenom’s talent experience platform,” said Anna Kaiser, co-founder and co-CEO of Tandemploy with Jana Tepe, both of whom will move to the Phenom team. Kaiser and Tepe have been the recipients of dozens of awards, including BBC 30 Under 30, LinkedIn Top Voices, and 25 Women Revolutionizing Our Economy.
Germany’s remberg Scores €11 Million Fund for New Kind of CRM Software
The German startup remberg said on February 7 it had raised €11 million in Series A funding in support of building a new type of CRM software centered on digitizing processes around equipment.
The round was led by Earlybird, a venture capital investor focused on European technology innovators, with participation from previous investors, including early-stage European tech fund Speedinvest and seed-stage investor Fly Ventures. Also lending support were several angel investors, including the founders of process mining software provider Celonis, HR software developer Personio, automation platform provider UiPath, and AI-based platform startup Konux.
Founded in August 2018, remberg is innovating on the CRM process by offering clients a solution to digitize processes around their equipment, including machines, buildings, and vehicles. Hendrik Brandis, co-founder of Earlybird, said remberg is completely rethinking customer-oriented processes by “starting from products and things, and not parties, such as customers.”
“This offers completely new possibilities to map complex relationships in different industries, especially with regard to the coming widespread IoT connectivity,” said Brandis, referring to the Internet of Things in his use of the acronym.
The fresh capital will be used primarily to further expand Munich-based remberg’s sales, product, and engineering operations.
Author Information
Alex is responsible for writing about trends and changes that are impacting the customer experience market. He had served as Principal Editor at Village Intelligence, a Los Angeles-based consultancy on technology impacting healthcare and healthcare-related industries. Alex was also Associate Director for Content Management at Omdia and Informa Tech, where he produced white papers, executive summaries, market insights, blogs, and other key content assets. His areas of coverage spanned the sectors grouped under the technology vertical, including semiconductors, smart technologies, enterprise & IT, media, displays, mobile, power, healthcare, China research, industrial and IoT, automotive, and transformative technologies.
At IHS Markit, he was Managing Editor of the company’s flagship IHS Quarterly, covering aerospace & defense, economics & country risk, chemicals, oil & gas, and other IHS verticals. He was Principal Editor of analyst output at iSuppli Corp. and Managing Editor of Market Watch, a fortnightly newsletter highlighting significant analyst report findings for pitching to the media. He started his career in writing as an Editor-Reporter for The Associated Press.
