Salesforce.com Announces Acquisition Of Jigsaw To Fuel Data Services Entry
- Written by Demand Gen Report Team
- Published in DemandGen Reports
In another sign that M&A activity may be heating up, Salesforce.com today announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Jigsaw, a leader in crowd-sourced data services. The details of the deal include an approximate $142M cash purchase price, plus a performance-based contingent earn out of up to 10% of the purchase price. The deal is expected to close in Q2FY11, subject to customary closing conditions.
Jigsaw’s unique Wikipedia-style crowd-sourcing model delivers business contact data in the cloud. The acquisition will combine salesforce.com’s suite of CRM applications and Jigsaw’s cloud-based model for the automation of acquiring, completing and cleansing business contact data. The proposed acquisition will mark salesforce.com’s “strategic entry into the $3 billion market for cloud-based BtoB data services, and will create new opportunities for salesforce.com to partner” with information services companies like D&B, Hoover’s and LexisNexis.
“Salesforce.com is excited to bring the data services industry into the era of Cloud 2,” said Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO, salesforce.com. “With Jigsaw, we’ll make it as easy as Wikipedia to source data, as easy as iTunes to buy data and as easy as Facebook to stay updated as the data changes.”
Companies can become members of the Jigsaw community by sharing common contact data that is found on a business card, including name, title, company, mailing address, business telephone number and e-mail address. Any Jigsaw.com community member can access the database, and can accumulate points through helping to maintain data quality. These points may be redeemed for access to additional records. In addition, companies or professionals may utilize the Jigsaw service by purchasing contact data. Jigsaw also offers premium automated data cleansing services to update and enrich data critical to success for any CRM deployment for a subscription-based fee.
“Companies are utilizing crowd-sourced data services in the cloud more than ever because it offers the best quality information,” said Jim Fowler, CEO, Jigsaw. “This is an exciting opportunity for all of us at Jigsaw, and will help us accelerate our ability to bring cloud-based data services to a wider audience.”
Jigsaw’s success has been fueled by its community of more than 1.2 million members. Over the last six years, community members have built and maintained a contact database of more than 21 million professionals at nearly 4 million companies. The proposed acquisition will extend and accelerate the community’s growth. Jigsaw currently has 800 corporate customers like New Horizons Computer Learning Centers, Hackett Group and Sales Performance International.