Serial Entrepreneur Stephan Dietrich Joins Board and Company Secures Investment from Salesforce Ventures, Demonstrating Importance of PIM for Commerce
Boston and Nantes, France, Dec. 19, 2018 — Akeneo, a leading provider of Product Information Management (PIM) solutions for corporate brands and retailers, today announced that it has generated a triple-digit year-over-year growth rate for the last six consecutive years. In 2018, Akeneo signed on a slew of global clients, including Fossil, Sunbelt Rentals and Rural King, demonstrating the increasingly strategic role of product experience management (PXM) in the commerce stack.
As Akeneo continues its rapid expansion across Europe and North America, it recently secured a strategic investment from Salesforce Ventures and investor Stephan Dietrich, who will also join the company as an independent board member. Dietrich is a serial entrepreneur and global leader with 25 years of management, sales, and marketing experience with SaaS businesses. His last brainchild Neolane, a conversational marketing company was acquired by Adobe Systems for $600 million in 2013.
“It’s remarkable to see Akeneo’s rapid growth and industry recognition over the years,” said Dietrich. “As brands and retailers grapple with an ever-exploding number of customer touchpoints and channels, I believe Akeneo is well positioned to seize this market opportunity and I’m glad to be helping them expand their global footprint.”
Akeneo’s open source PIM platform provides corporate brands and omnichannel retailers with a comprehensive solution to manage product information and online catalogs. In the era of experience-driven commerce, many merchants rely on the power of product information to deliver compelling, consistent, and personalized customer experiences across sales channels.
Akeneo’s PIM capabilities have been helping Salesforce Commerce Cloud customers improve their time-to-market and customer experience, using a certified cartridge available on the Commerce Cloud Partner Marketplace. This new investment will allow Akeneo to create deeper integrations customized for Salesforce users; a new cartridge update will be released in the coming weeks to provide a further boost to catalog manager productivity and facilitate product experience management.
“We are excited to support Akeneo’s innovative PIM platform as they leverage Salesforce Commerce Cloud to deliver enhanced benefits to our joint customers,” said Alex Kayyal, partner at Salesforce Ventures.
“Akeneo PIM has evolved from a tactical tool into a full-featured strategic business application that enables customized and personalized product experiences,” said Fred de Gombert, CEO and co-founder of Akeneo. “With our investors’ strong support and technology expertise, we look forward to further optimizing our product offering and pioneering the use of machine learning to help both B2B and B2C merchants thrive in today’s omnichannel commerce world.”
Akeneo will use the new funding for continued AI research and development, and to hire new employees to expand the company’s footprint in North America.
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About Akeneo
Akeneo is a global leader in Product Information Management (PIM) solutions that enable retailers and corporate brands to deliver a consistent and enriched customer experience across all sales channels, including e-commerce, mobile, print, and retail points of sale. Akeneo’s open source enterprise PIM dramatically improves product data quality and accuracy while simplifying and accelerating product catalog management. For more information, please visit https://www.akeneo.com or contact [email protected].
Salesforce Ventures
Salesforce is the fastest growing top five enterprise software company and the #1 CRM provider globally. Salesforce Ventures—the company’s corporate investment group—invests in the next generation of enterprise technology that extends the power of the Salesforce Customer Success Platform, helping companies connect with their customers in entirely new ways. Portfolio companies receive funding as well as access to the world’s largest cloud ecosystem and the guidance of Salesforce’s innovators and executives. With Salesforce Ventures, portfolio companies can also leverage Salesforce’s expertise in corporate philanthropy by joining Pledge 1% to make giving back part of their business model. Salesforce Ventures has invested in more than 280 enterprise cloud startups in 18 different countries since 2009. For more information, please visit www.salesforce.com/ventures.
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