By Stephen Phillips
E.Piphany Inc, yesterday mounted its first acquisition since going public in September, swooping for fellow customer analysis software house, Rightpoint Inc, using $394m worth of its newly floated shares. E.Piphany plans to bolt Rightpoint’s technology onto its software, offering customers the ability to mount a so- called real-time marketing campaigns – offering additional products to customers while they place orders over the web or phone, based on their previous buying behavior.
San Mateo-based E.Piphany sells suites of software, featuring tools for reporting, analysis, distributed database marketing and e-commerce, which allow companies to probe customer-buying behavior and optimize marketing strategies. Meantime, Rightpoint’s technology serves up real-time, customer-specific prompts to customer-service agents processing customer orders over the web or via call centers. The browser-based software processes information gathered on customers’ previous buying habits to suggest cross-selling opportunities.
Roger Siboni, E.piphany’s chief executive officer, told ComputerWire that the company planned to complete integration of the two products by the end of the first quarter of 2000, previous to closing the acquisition before the end of this year. Siboni said the deal represented a remakrable realignment of vertical industries, noting that the companies served the same markets – financial services, communications and e-commerce – without a single customer overlap. E.piphany’s client roster includes computer market Hewlett Packard Co and internet- intensive brokerage company, Charles Schwab, which represent 16 and 17% of sales respectively. And the company claimed online retailing giant, Amazon Online as a customer last month, news which boosted its share price by 35%. Meantime Rightpoint counts American Express, UK financial Services company, the Halifax Building Society, and cellular phone services provider, Vodafone, among its customers, according to chief executive officer, Gayle Crowell.
Crowell, who will head up the e-commerce business unit in the merged company told ComputerWire that software would be sold through a traditional licensing structure and by subscription through a web-hosted model. At the moment, E.Piphany sells its software directly or via systems integrators or resellers for $800, while Rightpoint retails its products for $300. Siboni said prices for the bundled offering had not yet been set, but that the combined price for the two products would be subject to some rationalization.
E.Piphany plans to issue about 3.5 million shares to investors in privately-owned Rightpoint in a deal, which will leave about 11% of the combined company in Rightpoint’s hands. E.Piphany share price closed at $112.50 on Monday, before the deal was announced, after being offered to investors for just $16 in the company’s initial public offering in September.
