I wrote about CubeTree last October when they were finalist (and eventual winner) in the Enterprise 2.0 LaunchPad. News just out today that they’re to be acquired by SuccessFactors for $20 million with a three year, $30 million earn out clause.
There’s been a flurry of commentary around this deal – here’s a quick analysis from my perspective.
Salesforce.com have got significant exposure of late with Chatter – despite it being beta (at best) there has been a huge flurry of interest from third parties too either integrate chatter into their applications, or built on top of chatter. Salesforce’s strategy seems to be one of land-and-expand – with Chatter being the tool to build adoption further up it’s product offering.
SuccessFactors (and other vendors for that matter) has remained somewhat silent through all of this. At the recent SuiteCloud conference (see disclosure) I took part in a session where CEP Zach Nelson was questioned about the role of social in what they do – he made it clear it’s a area of huge interest for them, but one they haven’t got anything concrete to offer at this stage.
With this acquisition, SuccessFactors get’s an already built and inherently social offering that they can then backend into their own application to find a way to use a similar approach as that taken by Salesforce with Chatter.
In terms of the numbers, the extreme long length of the earn out clause means that, for all intents and purposes, this is a $20 million acquisition. Not bad for a company that’s only had a product for six months or so but chump change to SuccessFactors and worth spending if for no other reason than to head off any competitors from making a similar acquisition.
Good points. I can see how it makes sense from SuccessFactor perspective.
What I am a bit baffled by is the rush to get acquired from CubeTree perspective. This market is just starting to catch fire and business is just starting to get create. I suspect over the next 2-3 years you will see a few new SalesForce/Siebel/BEAS etc..out of this cycle…so a bit puzzled. I am sure its a very smart team and did what they believe to be the best.
-Anup
(Full disclosure…we offer a similar business collaboration service @ http://www.engagesmart.com).
@Anup – simple really $20mill is a lot of cash….
yeah.. but if they’ve raised $12… doesn’t leave a lot of money for employees once preferences clear..
Cubetree raised $8mm in Nov 2009.
They were prob sitting on $4-$6mm cash still.
Net of the $20m cash is only ~$15m.
Still a lot of cash, but the numbers don’t fully add up for me either.
@Isaac – you’re parsing this in terms of your own product which is (although I hate the term) a platform. CubeTree is a nice feature and all but it’s just that – the opportunities are limited and once all the major players have got their social fix, there’ll be little left over. I think the decision they made will prove the right one