Adobe announced this week that they have acquired French conversational marketing company Neolane for a whopping $600M this week. With more than 400 customers worldwide, Neolane will allow Adobe to beef up their Adobe Marketing Cloud offer to include their cross-channel campaign management technology. Among the investors of Neolane’s $27M in fundraising were Battery Ventures, Auriga Partners, and Xange Private Equity.
In addition to being a great exit for the founders, investors, and likely the employees, this may also put an end to the very short-lived curse put on French companies after the French government blocked the Yahoo-Dailymotion deal. Much like the proposed 75% tax, the attack on entrepreneurs last year, and other horribly managed PR campaigns, the Yahoo-Dailymotion scandal put a black mark on France’s record, and it was only a matter of time before another company came in and bought a great French technology.
Neolane has been around since 2001; however, with $60M in revenue, it’s great to see yet another French company exiting for 9-digit sums. In addition to what I imagine is some great marketing technology, it’s good to note that A) they had a global presence B) they had global clients and C) they had a global vision. I guess the acquisition offers start to multiply when you think like a real Entrepreneur.
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