Who’s who in B2B Marketing Automation: The vendor landscape
Here's an overview of the recent funding and M&A activity among B2B marketing automation vendors.
The enterprise B2B marketing automation market is concentrated among a few cloud vendors, including Salesforce, Oracle and Adobe. In 2018, there were a number of acquisitions by Adobe and Salesforce in particular as they sought to consolidate their positions at the top of the market and broaden their offerings for B2B firms.
Adobe’s biggest deal of 2018 was its purchase of rival marketing automation platform Marketo in September for $4.75 billion; the firm also bought Magneto Commerce for $1.68 billion in May. Meanwhile, Salesforce acquired integration platform Mulesoft in May for $6.5 billion, analytics provider Datorama in July for $800 million, as well as interactive email outfit Rebel in October and CloudCraze in May for undisclosed sums (see chart below).
More recently, we’ve seen the acquisition of Mautic by open source cloud platform Acquia for an undisclosed sum in May of 2019, only to have the parent purchased by Vista Partners in September for $1B. Also in May, SugarCRM picked up Salesfusion and re-branded it Sugar Market, in a deal in which terms were not publicly disclosed.
Select Marketing Automation Financial Transactions
Date | Transactions |
---|---|
May 2019 | • Acquia acquires Mautic (terms not disclosed). Vista Equity Partners later (Sept 2019) buys Acquia for $1B • SugarCRM buys Salesfusion (for undisclosed amount); rebrands it to Sugar Market. The acquisition followed the company’s buy of Collabspot and preceded its purchase of Corvana. These units are now called Sugar Connect and Sugar Discover, respectively. |
February 2019 | • Mailchimp acquires Sawa (undisclosed sum) |
January 2019 | • Infusionsoft rebrands as Keap; launches CRM • j2Global acquires iContact for $49M |
October 2018 | • Salesforce acquires Rebel (undisclosed sum) • Infusionsoft (now known as Keap) secures $20M in Series E funding led by ORIX USA Corp. |
September 2018 | • Adobe acquires Marketo for $4.75B |
July 2018 | • Salesforce acquires Datorama for $800M |
May 2018 | • Adobe acquires Magneto Commerce for $1.68B • Salesforce acquires Mulesoft $6.5B and CloudCraze (undisclosed sum) |
There was less deal-making activity among vendors serving the small and mid- sized business (SMB) market in 2018, although Infusionsoft, which targets small and rapidly growing firms, raised $20 million in Series E funding in October before undergoing a rebrand (to Keap) in January 2019 and launching a new CRM tool.
In January 2019, Cision sold iContact to j2Global for $49 million. Mailchimp bought graphic design startup Sawa in February for an undisclosed sum to enable users to more easily create on-brand campaign graphics.
There will likely be more acquisitions to come in 2020, as a number of smaller martech companies mature out of the venture-funded stage.
Get the in-depth scoop on B2B Marketing Automation in our buyer’s guide. Download it now!
Related stories