Magento, the popular e-commerce CMS platform, has been acquired by Adobe.
The Magento platform has long been regarded as a choice for those who want to build and manage online stores. And for Adobe, this purchase give it a missing e-commerce platform piece that works in B2B and B2C contexts and should fit nicely in the Experience Cloud, the company's suite of digital marketing services that include advertising and analytics tools..
It should also help Adobe in competing with Salesforce, which offers its own marketing, sales and service offerings in the cloud.
According to Mark Lavelle, Magento's CEO:
As of the time of the acquisition, Magento comes in two flavors: an open source version that developers can customize and build on, and a paid Commerce version that has additional functionality, like tools for staging, loyalty program management, and managed cloud hosting.
Magento customers include brands like Canon, Helly Hansen, Paul Smith and Rosetta Stone. Both Adobe and Magento have share joint customers that include Coca-Cola, Warner Music Group, Nestlé and Cathay Pacific.
This isn’t the first time that Magento has been acquired.
Founded in 2008, the company was first acquired by eBay in 2011 for a deal reported at $180 million. The company went private again with the help of Permira Funds in 2015, which was said to pay around $200 million. And at this time, Adobe acquires the company for $1.68 billion, a hefty increase in value since that 2011 purchase and a tidy five times return for Permira,
Lavelle is continuing his lead at Magento team as part of Adobe’s Digital Experience business, reporting to executive vice president and general manager Brad Rencher.
The CMS is known to have a vibrant community that is active in contributing plugins to expand its capabilities.