This week in MarTech: Salesforce is in talks to acquire Slack, Adobe Expands Customer Data Platform to Include B2B Sales, Adjust announces partnership and technology integration with Adobe as part of the Adobe Exchange program, AppsFlyer Exceeds $200 Million in ARR and EntityX secures investment from industry angels.
Salesforce is in Talks to Acquire Slack
Software super giant, Salesforce is in talks to acquire workplace messaging app, Slack. The potential acquisition follows slack’s recent struggles to fully capitalise on the switch to remote working since the pandemic.
Despite a strong start from Slack at the beginning of the pandemic, with app installations increasing 50% from the same period last year, in the recent months Slack has been forced to offer discounts for paying customers as many businesses have been forced to seek cheaper alternatives in the current economic climate.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the deal with Slack would likely value at more than $17 Billion marking Salesforce’s largest acquisition to date.
Read more about this story here.
THIS JUST IN: The deal is done. Salesforce have acquired Slack for a sweet $27.7 billion.
Read the details about the deal here.
Adobe Expands Customer Data Platform to Include B2B Sales
Adobe announces its intention to create a customer data platform for B2B customers. Adobe’s Director of Product Marketing for Marketo Engage, is leading this product and has said that these sales are much more complex and B2B sales and marketing teams are shouting out for a CDP.
Adobe is said to be working with early customers on the product and expects to go into beta before the end of next month.
“We have spent the last couple of years integrating Marketo Engage across Adobe Experience Cloud, and now what we’re doing is building out the next generation of new and complementary B2B offerings on the Experience platform, the first of which is the B2B CDP offering,” - Brian Glover, Director of Product Marketing, Marketo Engage, Adobe.
Read more about this story here.
Adjust Announces Partnership and Technology Integration with Adobe, as Part of the Adobe Exchange Program
App marketing platform, Adjust, announces partnership and technology integration with Adobe, as part of the Adobe Exchange program.
By combining mobile app data with data collected from additional touchpoints, current and prospective mutual clients will now be able to build a more complete view of the user journey across all channels — augmenting their customer experience analytics stack. This will empower them to make more informed, targeted marketing decisions to maximize ROI and improve business outcomes.
"As a driver in innovation in mobile marketing, we're thrilled to become a premier level partner in the Adobe Exchange Partner Program, bringing actionable analytics and measurement, fraud prevention and automation to leading businesses globally” Said Andrey Kazakov, VP Partnerships at Adjust.
AppsFlyer Exceeds $200 Million in Annual Recurring Revenue
Salesforce Ventures joined investors in a late stage extension of AppsFlyer’s $210 million series D round funding.
Having secured more than $300 million in funding since 2011, the company now exceeds $200 million in annual recurring revenue and has recently reached 1,000 employees globally.
With the new funds, the company plans to increase its global headcount in 2021 along with further product innovation.
“AppsFlyer has been the driving force in mobile marketing attribution and has demonstrated true, long-term commitment to represent the app developers within the ecosystem,” Said Nowi Kallen, Principal at Salesforce Ventures.
EntityX Secures Investment from Industry Angels
London-based, EntityX, have secured investment to further develop their existing technology into advanced contextual targeting based upon deep understanding of page meaning. This new approach combines proprietary “knowledge graph” technology and the principles of contextual targeting, enabling advertisers to target valuable, but hard-to-reach audiences at scale.
The investment round was led by Malcolm Cox, former CMO of contextual pioneer, Grapeshot, which sold to Oracle for $325m in 2018. Cox said, “EntityX’s unique approach delivers the next generation of contextual targeting, with peerless accuracy. The immediate application is to radically improve contextual targeting and transform brand safety. But understanding the meaning of web pages is of fundamental importance. Using meaning in this way will revolutionise advertising.”
MarTech News Weekly Round-up – over and out.
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