Adobe Acquiring Marketo in $4.75B Deal to Boost Experience Cloud Platform
Adobe announced a massive $4.75 billion dollar deal to acquire privately held marketing cloud platform Marketo on Sept. 20.
The deal will bring new capabilities to Adobe's Experience Cloud platform, including planning engagement and measurement features. With Marketo, Adobe now has a competitive offering to go up against both Salesforce's and Oracle's respective marketing cloud platforms.
“The imperative for marketers across all industries is a laser focus on providing relevant, personalized and engaging experiences,” Brad Rencher, executive vice president and general manager, Digital Experience, at Adobe, wrote in a statement. “The acquisition of Marketo widens Adobe's lead in customer experience across B2C and B2B and puts Adobe Experience Cloud at the heart of all marketing.”
Marketo is the second large acquisition announced by Adobe in 2018. In May the company announced the purchase of ecommerce platform vendor Magneto for $1.6 billion. Adobe has been a roll in recent months overall, reporting on Sept. 13 third quarter fiscal 2018 earnings of $2.29 billion, for a 24 percent year-over-year improvement.
Marketo
The acquisition of Marketo by Adobe marks the second time in as many years that the ownership of the company has changed. In May 2016, Vista Equity partners acquired Marketo for $1.8 billion.
“Adobe and Marketo both share an unwavering belief in the power of content and data to drive business results,” Steve Lucas, CEO of Marketo, stated. “Marketo delivers the leading B2B marketing engagement platform for the modern marketer, and there is no better home for Marketo to continue to rapidly innovate than Adobe.”
When the deal closes in the fourth quarter of 2018, Lucas will continue to lead the Marketo unit as part of the Adobe Digital Experience business, which is run by Rencher.
Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at EnterpriseAppsToday and InternetNews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.
Michael Singer is a career coach, podcast host, and author to help you step into a career you're excited about. Currently, He is a coach and trainer helping entrepreneurs and executives achieve business and leadership success. He is also an award-winning business journalist focused on the intersection of technology, Big Data, Cloud, SaaS, SAP, and other trending technology.
