Acquia is to acquire Widen, a cloud-native maker of digital asset management (DAM) and product information management (PIM) software provider. Widen unites digital assets such as rich media, product information and marketing copy in a single workflow. It provides an intuitive interface to democratize access for marketers to all of a brand’s resources. The company provides a foundation for collaboration, coordination and control of the full digital content lifecycle. Widen will enable marketers and website builders to create richer and distinctive customer experiences using Acquia Open Digital Experience Platform (DXP).
To create personalised customer engagement at scale, brands create immense volumes of digital content. Traditionally, the DAM simplifies marketers’ access to this content and manages versions and workflow to ensure consistency. But within the context of a DXP, a modern DAM must also provide robust technical capabilities and extensibility. A PIM solution enables enrichment of product data with marketing copy and digital assets to easily create branded product content. Together, these capabilities help organizations create and refine distinctive digital experiences based on evolving customer preferences.
“Acquia has long been an established leader in managing textual website content. With Widen, we can offer capabilities around rich media and product information content,” said Dries Buytaert, Acquia’s Co-founder and CTO. “Widen is consistently ranked a leader by industry analysts for vision, execution and market presence. We have numerous joint customers and believe Widen software will deliver value to Acquia Marketing Cloud and Drupal Cloud customers. We’re excited to welcome the Widen team to the Acquia family and to collaborate with them on Acquia Open DXP.”
Maximises the value of digital content
Today, 700 organizations, including Energizer, New Balance, Crayola and Hootsuite, use Widen solutions to deliver content with confidence. “Content is the heart of any digital experience,” said Matthew Gonnering, CEO of Widen. “It influences action across marketing channels; email, social media, content management systems, marketing campaigns, eCommerce, product information management and more. By combining with Acquia, Widen believes that radical innovation starts with commitment to customers and the community. We will continue to rapidly innovate our solutions to support the first and only open digital experience platform.”
Widen solutions simplify how marketers create, review, manage, distribute and analyse content across the content lifecycle. Its design and architecture make it uniquely able to support complex marketing workflows and enterprise DXP requirements. These encompass use cases that go beyond managing creative assets. To include storing unstructured data such as legal documents, insurance claims and contact lists. Widen’s PIM solution brings product data from creators to customers, centralising it for syndication across websites, catalogues and eCommerce channels.
Incorporate Widen into Acquia
According to Lynne Capozzi, CMO at Acquia, “With Widen, Acquia has an additional set of tools that make marketing easier. Having access to a DAM and PIM opens up the world for marketers to able to share images. In the past, we were all about textual content and now we’re about digital and richer types of content. Opening-up experience for marketers to all types of content for syndication across channels marketers use to communicate with customers.”
Acquia will develop enhancements to its DXP platform that unlocks opportunities for marketers to build better experiences in the market. This will include looking for more integrations between all Acquia products. In addition to adding artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning capabilities. “Especially the rapid evolutions within eCommerce, the addition of PIM within our eco-system, will make a positive contribution,” adds Capozzi.
Acquia intends to invest in the accelerated development of the Widen solution. It will also leverage its global capabilities and partner network to bring Widen to marketing organisations that use Acquia Open DXP. This will help them to manage, transform and deliver digital assets at scale.
The transaction is expected to close in late September 2021. Subject to completion of all necessary regulatory approvals and satisfaction of all closing conditions under the definitive agreement. Acquia is backed by Vista Equity Partners, a leading global investment firm focused on enterprise software, data and technology-enabled businesses. Software Equity Group (SEG) served as the exclusive financial advisor to Widen.
Enterprise Times: What this means for business?
Acquia supports the world’s most ambitious brands to create digital customer experiences that matter. With open-source Drupal at its core, the Acquia Digital Experience Platform (DXP) helps marketers, developers and IT operations teams at thousands of global organisations to compose and deploy digital products and services that engage customers, enhance conversions and help businesses stand out. It’s a good purchase for Acquia. The acquisition of Widen should differentiate Acquia Open DXP by adding enterprise-grade, cloud-native DAM and PIM capabilities. The company has provided a foundation for collaboration, coordination and control of the digital content lifecycle. As a result, Acquia has extended marketers and website builders ability to create richer and more distinctive customer experiences.
