Adobe announced that it was acquiring e-commerce services provider Magento for $1.68 billion. The purchase gives Adobe a missing e-commerce platform piece that should fit nicely in the company’s Experience Cloud. The deal should help Adobe bolster its experience cloud business, which provides services including analytics, advertising and marketing.
It should also help Adobe compete with Salesforce, which offers its own marketing, sales and service offerings in the cloud and which bought Demandware for more than $2 billion in 2016 to provide a similar set of functionality.
Salesforce is the 10,000-pound gorilla in this space with revenue across its various clouds reaching more than $8 billion last year. The company is on a run rate to exceed $10 billion in 2018. It has set a long-term company goal to reach $60 billion in annual revenue by 2034.
Magento also share customers including Coca-Cola, Warner Music Group, Nestle and Cathay Pacific with Adobe, the company said. The transaction is expected to close during the third quarter of Adobe's 2018 fiscal year.
Qatalyst Partners acted as financial adviser to Permira, and Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson acted as legal adviser.
