By the end of 2017 – Gartner estimated – Digital content management for sales (DCMS) vendors “generate $423.5 million in revenue, up by approximately 16% from the previous year”.
That is obviously not that big an annual revenue and not that big a growth rate…
…to justify the high number of over 186 market players (depending on how you count). Hence, recent years saw long overdue consolidation in the Sales Enablement market:
[Edit] Workfront workfront.com @workfront @AdobeWorkfront modern work management platform designed to connect people to work & accelerate organizational success across the enterprise. Lehi, UT, USA. 8-Dec-2020, Adobe announced that the acquisition of software company workfront has been completed. Workfront had more than 3000 enterprise customers & 1 million personal users. 15-Sep-2022, Adobe agreed to acquire Figma for approximately $20 billion.
[Edit] July 25, 2019, Bigtincan acquired the assets of Portland, Oregon, USA based Veelo, Inc. for US$1.8m.
[Edit] May 28, 2019, Upland Software acquired Kapost (Had $19M in funding) for approx. 3x revenue ($45M in cash) + $5M cash holdback payable in 12 months.
[Edit] 15-Nov-2018, Compelligence, LLC compelligence.com had a relaunch of their new company name, brand & website: CompeteiQ competeiq.io Competitive intelligence platform built for sales: Win Intelligently, Intelligent sales battle cards, Integrated win/loss workflow, Track news, website changes & trends, Salesforce AppExchange certified.
[Edit] 14-Nov-2018, Showpad sales enablement platform for sellers, acquired meeting intelligence software Voicefox to help with seller productivity, buyer engagement/experience. By recording, transcribing & analyzing business conversations, it gives sales managers the ability to understand & validate what’s happening in the field. Armed with this intelligence, sales managers can more effectively & scalably coach their teams.
25-Oct-2018: Mediafly mediafly.com @Mediafly announced the acquisition of Alinean Inc. alinean.com @AlineanROI
[Edit] 25-Sep-2018, Bigtincan announced the acquisition of Customer Engagement Platform FatStax fatstax.com @FatStaxApp creating end-to-end connections across CRM & sales enablement.
20-Sep-2018: Adobe Systems Inc. agreed to acquire software maker Marketo Inc. for $4.75bn. [19-Apr-2017 ToutApp had been acquired by Marketo.]
4-Sep-2018: DocuSign, Inc. completed its acquisition of SpringCM, a cloud-based document generation & contract lifecycle management software company. With SpringCM, DocuSign will accelerate customers’ ability to modernize their Systems of Agreement—all the way from preparing to signing, acting-on, & managing agreements.
Enhatch stopped selling a digital content management for sales solution (DCMS). [I’m removing them from my Sales Enablement market revenue chart.]
28-Jun-2018, Upland Software @UplandSoftware announced their acquisition of RO Innovation roinnovation.com. Uplandsoftware.com/roinnovation/
June 18, 2018, Bigtincan @bigtincan announced the acquisition of learning vendor (micro-learning / training and enablement platform) Zunos: “As part of the integration, Bigtincan will leverage Zunos’ expertise to shape its comprehensive learning platform in the Bigtincan Hub, focusing on micro-learning strategies to ensure retention, gamification to boost engagement and partner enablement to ensure holistic dissemination of content and knowledge across partner teams and organizations.”
June 5, 2018, Showpad (around since 2011) acquired LearnCore (provider of sales training & coaching software) to deliver an integrated Sales Enablement platform: Sales content, engagement, training & coaching. LearnCore & Showpad’s combined platform will leverage data analytics & artificial intelligence to optimize investment in content, deliver relevant content recommendations for sales, and improve the skills of sales teams through personalized training & coaching at scale. Showpad expanded its operations with new offices in Amsterdam, Munich, & Chicago. The combined company will have 350 employees globally.
May 8, 2018, it was announced that Seismic acquires SAVO Group. On Jun 12, 2017, KnowledgeTree was acquired by SAVO Group. SAVO Group also had an investment from SAP.
March 7, 2018, Octiv acquired by Conga @congaHQ. Octiv was formerly known as TinderBox. 7-May-2020 Conga conga.com @CongaHQ was acquired by Apttus which had been acquired by Thoma Bravo on Sep 4, 2018. The company will be known as Conga.
Jan 29, 2018, CallidusCloud acquired by SAP. Price $2.4B. Callidus itself had been “quite acquisitive, acquiring 14 companies dating back to 2010 including 4 in 2017 alone, according to data on Crunchbase.” Jul 6, 2011, Callidus Software Inc acquired iCentera (on-demand sales enablement software to increase sales revenue through marketing, sales, and customer messaging vehicles)
December 12, 2017, ClearSlide joined Corel Corporation. ClearSlide clearslide.com had acquired SlideRocket to let you create & edit presentations in the cloud with slide-by-slide analytics. (Sold to Bigtincan in 2020)
Dec. 06, 2017, Quark Software @QuarkNews took over Docurated Inc. Docurated’s inception was in 2012.
Nov 30, 2017 we learned Bigtincan acquired Contondo. “Contondo’s data science team and core technology will be incorporated into the Bigtincan Hub Sales Enablement Automation Platform.”
Nov. 17, 2017, Upland Software, Inc., cloud-based Enterprise Work Management software, acquired Qvidian Corporation, provider of cloud-based RFP and Sales Proposal automation software. After Sant and Kadient had already merged into Qvidian, Qvidian is now owned by Upland Software.
Sep. 7, 2017, Vision Critical @visioncritical announced its acquisition of Pressly @pressly a Toronto-based software company. Vision Critical provides customer relationship intelligence software that improves customer relationships to grow customer lifetime value. Vancouver, Canada. Alida alida.com created a CXM & Insights Platform. The company is based in Toronto and formerly known as Vision Critical. Alida Inc. formerly known as Vision Critical Communications Inc.
June 12, 2017: Jive jivesoftware.com @jivesoftware “provider of modern communication & collaboration solutions for business. We empower people & organizations to work better together.” Though based in California, Jive’s largest site is in downtown Portland, its onetime headquarters. Aurea completed its $462M purchase of Jive. Jive once employed upward of 200 people in Portland, but after a 2016 layoff & an exodus following the company’s sale, its workforce has fallen considerably. Jive Software had $203.5M in revenue annually & competed with Get Satisfaction, Slack, & Workfront.
Trapit was acquired by ScribbleLive in May 2017. (Rock Content has acquired ScribbleLive on Dec 10, 2019. Rock Content: SaaS, Marketplace. Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil)
April 19, 2017: ToutApp was acquired by Marketo (Sep 20, 2018: Adobe Systems Inc. agreed to acquire software maker Marketo). ToutApp: $7M in revenue annually & competes with Velocify, Inc., Outreach, & SalesLoft.
MarcomCentral acquired by Ricoh Company on Dec 9, 2014 marcom.com @MarcomCentral an online, on demand marketing assets management (MAM) solution. “Become a marketing rockstar with MarcomCentral’s marketing asset management software.” Manages & customizes marketing content across your entire organization. $10M in estimated revenue annually & competes with Pageflex Inc., SproutLoud Media Networks, LLC, & Elateral. Solana Beach, California, US
My frequently updated lists tracking the market:
- Table to download yourself
- Global list / companies worldwide
- European list / Europe-based companies
- Canadian list / Canada-based companies
- Australian list / Australia-based companies
- Companies from the Nordics
- List for India / companies with development in India
- Sales Enablement market deathwatch
- Sales Enablement tools powered by AI
B2B Sales Enablement and Sales Tech SaaS 
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