Monetate Board Additions: Steps toward IPO preparation? (Update 4/5: Monetate adds new CFO)

Tom Paine

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Conshohocken-based ecommerce software company Monetate added two new outside board members last week, both having connections to social marketing management platform ExactTarget, which was acquired by Salesforce last year for $2.5 billion.

Tim Maudlin / Monetate website

Tim Maudlin served on the Board of Directors of ExactTarget, a NASDAQ listed company prior to its acquisition by Salesforce last year, as Lead Independent Director, Chair of the Audit Committee, and Chair of the Nominating and Governance Committee. He has held similar board responsibilities for Web.com, MediaMind Technologies Inc., Fanatics, Inc. prior to its acquisition by GSI Commerce in February 2011, and Newegg. He also manages a VC firm, Medical Innovation Partners.

The other addition, Tim Kopp, served as CMO of ExactTarget prior to its acquisition by Salesforce.

Other Monetate board members are Josh Kopelman of First Round Capital (an early Monetate backer), Sam Decker (founding CMO of Bazaarvoice), Lucinda Duncalfe (Founder & CEO, Real Food Works), Adam Marcus, Managing Director of OpenView Partners (a major Monetate investor), and David Bookspan, Monetate Founder and Chairman.

These appointments don't indicate any direct relationship with Salesforce, since Kopp and
Maudlin have no current connection to the company. But they may be another step toward
preparing Monetate for an IPO, particularly given Maudlin's strong corporate governance background with public companies.

As CEO David Brussin was quoted as saying in the Daily News late last year, "in a couple of years, we'll be a public company and a lot larger."

Monetate lists ExactTarget as a "Compliant Partner", meaning its technology platform and products "natively integrate with Monetate", according to Monetate's website. In January, Monetate announced a partnership and software integration with SAP's hybris, in some regards a competitor to ExactTarget. hybris is listed by Monetate as a technology partner.

Yesterday, SAP teamed up with Adobe on a global agreement under which SAP will resell Adobe's Marketing Cloud software suite along with SAP's Hana in-memory database platform and Hybris Commerce Suite. Adobe currently does not appear among Monetate partners on its website. (Brussin cites Adobe as a Monetate competitor in the Daily News article.)

Update 4/5: This past Thursday, Monetate announced the appointment of
Bob Lawson as Chief Financial Officer. Lawson had been senior vice president and chief financial officer at RingCentral when it did its IPO last year.

"Lawson brings to Monetate proven expertise in helping pre-IPO and public companies drive organizational improvements and achieve outstanding financial results," Monetate said in a statement announcing the appointment.

Previous CFO David Stetson (see Philly Tech News profile from last year) apparently resigned at the beginning of 2014, after less than a year on the job. Around the same time, former VP of Marketing Blair Lyon (now CMO of LeadiD) left.

After passing on Jive & ExactTarget, SAP ramps up social media / ecommerce strategy by acquiring Hybris

Tom Paine

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Two weeks ago, Bloomberg reported that SAP had held talks to acquire enterprise collaboration network Jive, which has a market value in excess of $1 billion, but ended the talks after deciding that Jive's offering overlapped too much with SAP's own, according to Bloomberg's sources.

Then yesterday, Salesforce announced it was acquiring ExactTarget, which has a core strength in software for managing enterprise email marketing programs, for $2.5 billion. SAP was an investor in ExactTarget through SAP Ventures, and once again Bloomberg cited sources saying that SAP had considered acquiring ExactTarget but decided not to proceed.

Whether the sources talking to Bloomberg are coming from within the SAP camp is not clear. But the recent moves, and SAP's inaction, may have left some wondering what SAP's game plan was for increasing its social media toolbox.

Part of that answer came today, as SAP announced it was acquiring Swiss-based Hybris (not to be confused with Hubris), which had been said to have been on SAP's radar for a while. FT cited sources putting the value of the transaction in the $1 billion range. Hybris had estimated revenue for 2012 of more than $100 million. Its CEO was previously a top Salesforce executive in Europe.

Hybris sells an “omni-channel commerce platform that incorporates Web, mobile, call center and store solutions," which "helps businesses of all sizes on every continent sell more goods, services and digital content through every touch point, channel and device," SAP said in its statement announcing the deal. "Hybris' solutions provide a single view of customers, products and orders across multiple demand and delivery channels, made possible by state-of-the-art master data management and unified commerce processes for all channels."

While SAP plans to operate Hybris as an independent company, it does plan to integrate it with its HANA in-memory computing technology and Jam social network.

Hybris will serve as “a defining step in SAP’s evolution to a business-to-business-to consumer company,” co-CEO Bill McDermott said during a conference call today, adding that the acquisition is part of SAP's plans to “take over” the CRM market. MCDermott also took a shot at Salesforce's ExactTarget buy (which SAP had reportedly considered), saying SAP's ecommerce strategy was “not about sending out email blasts."

Along the ecommerce/social media spectrum, Hybris may be more directly comparable to Massachusetts-based ATG, which was acquired by Oracle in 2010, and IBM's WebSphere (and to a lesser extent eBay's King of Prussia-based GSI Commerce unit).

Hybris, which has many huge global brands as clients. has 14 office locations in North America, according to its website. Philadelphia is not among them, though I do see demand for Hybris specialists on the websites of some of the big consulting firms in the area.



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Daily Links 6/5/2013: DirecTV acquires Langhorne's LifeShield; SAP to Acquire hybris

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SAP HANA sales fly but there's more to the in-memory story (ZDNet)

SAP to Acquire hybris to Deliver Next-Generation Customer Experience (SAP News Release)

Here's Why Salesforce Spent A Whopping $2.5 Billion On ExactTarget (SAI Enterprise)


Boston-based mobile solutions provider Mobiquity Secures $12M in Series B Financing, led by NewSpring Growth (Marketwire)

DirecTV buys firm backed by Michael Hagan (Philadelphia Business Journal)
LifeShield Home Security was ranked #16 on the just released Philly Tech News Young Companies to Watch. However, information on its success in penetrating the market was sparse. My sense was its IP-based solution was targeted more at apartment renters than homeowners. One report says Lifeshield has 105 employees.

DirecTV Buys LifeShield: Reports (Multichannel News)

Comcast Tees Up Multi-Room DVR for X1 (Multichannel News)

QVC CEO aims to win in the new retail game (MarketWatch)

Daily Links 6/4/2013: Salesforce to acquire ExactTarget for $2.5 billion

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Salesforce.com buying ExactTarget for $2.5B (Indianapolis Business Journal)
Bloomberg reports that SAP, which had a stake in ExactTarget through SAP Ventures, considered acquiring the company but passed on it.

IBM To Acquire Cloud Services Company SoftLayer (All Things D)

Germany's SAP says HANA software clients top 1,500 (Reuters)

SAP Says Internal Successor to CFO Brandt Is Likely (Bloomberg)
No plans to move headquarters.

EPAM: UBS Says Buy Highly Skilled Software Devs, Russia-Belarus Arbitrage (Barron's: Tech Trader Daily)

Comcast CFO Discusses Telemundo Profits, NBC Upside, Aereo (Hollywood Reporter)

Cord-Cutting Is Real, and the Cable Guys Are Still in Great Shape – For Now (All Things D)
Craig Moffet issues new report on Cable industry.

Verizon reportedly close to a four-year, $1 billion deal to stream every NFL game (The Verge)

CenTrak Expands to Meet Growing Demand for Clinical-Grade Real-Time Location Systems (RTLS) (PR Newswire)
Says new Newtown headquarters doubles footprint. CenTrak was ranked #38 on the just released Philly Tech News Young Companies to Watch.

PhillyInc: TargetX spins off college-recruiting brand(Philly.com)
TargetX will focus on Force.com CRM business. TargetX was ranked #39 on Philly Tech News Young Companies to Watch.

Philadelphia CIOs Reveal Third-Quarter Hiring Plans
Robert Half Technology Survey Shows IT Hiring Projections (PR Newswire)




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