By Yuliya Chernova
Redwood City, Calif.-- Oracle Corp. paid more than $1.2 billion
to acquire marketing analytics company Datalogix Holdings Inc.,
according to two people familiar with the situation.
Oracle announced its intent to buy Datalogix on Dec. 22. without
disclosing the purchase price. The deal closed on Jan. 23,
according to Datalogix's website.
An Oracle spokeswoman declined to comment on Wednesday.
Datalogix merges data about shoppers' purchases in
brick-and-mortar stores with their online habits. It helps
marketers target online ads to audiences in narrow categories,
going deeper than the standard broad breakdowns by age and gender.
Datalogix says it also can show when online display ads result in
physical store purchases.
According to Oracle, Datalogix analyzes information on more than
$2 trillion in consumer spending and has 650 customers, including
Ford Motor Co. and Kraft Foods Group Inc., as well as digital-media
companies such as Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc.
Advertisers are increasingly spending money on software to
analyze data and make decisions, and big software companies such as
Oracle and Salesforce.com Inc. are angling to take a larger part of
the market.
Oracle has been on a shopping spree recently, buying marketing
technology companies such as Responsys Inc. and Blue Kai Inc. last
year and Eloqua Inc. in 2013.
Before the acquisition, Datalogix had been exploring an initial
public offering. The Wall Street Journal reported last year that
Datalogix was working with banks including Goldman Sachs, Deutsche
Bank AG and Barclays PLC on a potential IPO.
The acquisition ends a long saga for Datalogix.
Cambridge, Mass.-based venture firm General Catalyst Partners
created a startup called Datalogix in 2007. The idea was to use
consumer purchasing information to better target online ads. Rob
Gierkink, then an entrepreneur in residence at the venture firm,
was working on the idea after co-founding and running major U.K.
and Canadian loyalty programs.
Datalogix was in its very early stages when the recession hit.
Companies were cheap, and General Catalyst spearheaded a purchase
of a struggling company called NextAction Corp.
That company, which had been operating since 2002, was largely
focused on supplying marketing information to catalog advertisers.
By that time, NextAction had "defaulted on loans and its venture
capital investors had cut their contributions," according to
Datalogix's website. The General Catalyst-led acquisition was for a
purchase price in the eight figures, according to VentureWire
archives.
NextAction and Datalogix merged and rode a wave of demand for
digital marketing know-how and information. Companies like Facebook
use Datalogix to show advertisers that their ads are effective.
In subsequent years, the company raised new capital.
Institutional Venture Partners led a $25 million round in 2013. Jim
Breyer, an early backer of Facebook while at Accel Partners,
invested in Datalogix in 2014, out of his Breyer Capital, and
joined the board. Wellington Management, which invests in publicly
traded and private companies, as well as in other assets, led a $45
million round last year.
Eric Roza, who ran Datalogix after the merger with NextAction,
has joined Oracle and will continue heading up the Datalogix
business, according to one of the people familiar with the
matter.
The startup had about 375 employees in Westminster, Colo.,
Chicago, Detroit, New York and San Francisco.
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