[Updated 12/22/14 10:25 a.m. See below.] Oracle announced Monday it will buy Datalogix, the Westminster, CO-based data broker used by companies such as Facebook and Twitter to understand the offline consumer activity of their users. The price of the acquisition was not disclosed, but one media report puts it at several hundred million dollars.
Datalogix is at the convergence of big data and adtech, and it tracks and analyzes more than $2 trillion worth of customer transactions from 110 million households, according to the company. It has more than 650 customers, including 82 of the top 100 U.S. advertisers such as Pepsi, Ford, and Kraft, and seven of the top eight digital media publishers, including Google and Yahoo.
“Datalogix’s mission is to help the leading consumer marketers connect digital media to the offline world, where over 93 percent of consumer spending occurs,” Datalogix CEO Eric Roza said in a statement.
Customers use information they get from Datalogix to target advertising to users and track the effectiveness of online ad campaigns. Oracle (NYSE: [[ticker:ORCL]]) said it will make Datalogix part of the Oracle Data Cloud. Datalogix will join BlueKai, another big data company Oracle bought this year, as the company rounds out its “data as a service” strategy to offer customers behavioral, social, and purchase data they can use for digital, mobile, offline and TV marketing.
While Oracle has yet to say what it will pay for Datalogix, Pivotal Research Group senior research analyst Brian Wieser said in an analyst’s note it could be “in the high hundreds of millions of dollars.” Wieser’s estimate was first reported in Business Insider.
[Updated with additional information from the analyst report.] Wieser’s note said Datalogix’s management said earlier this year it expected growth of more than 50 percent annually, and he cited one report estimating the company would have $125 million in revenue this year.
Datalogix has been priming itself for something big this year. In May, the Wall Street Journal reported it was laying the groundwork for an IPO that might take place this year. The report said Datalogix was looking to raise about $75 million and that it was working with Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, and Barclays.
Earlier this month, The Deal reported Datalogix was looking for a buyer and that bids would start at $200 million. The article cited the poor performance of other adtech companies following their IPOs and regulatory concerns about privacy rights as reasons why the timing for an IPO was no longer favorable.
In May, Datalogix raised a $45 million Series C round, and the company has raised more than $85 million from investors including Wellington Management Company, Institutional Venture Partners, General Catalyst, Costanoa Venture Capital, and Boulder-based Sequel Venture Partners. Renowned venture investor Jim Breyer also has invested an undisclosed amount in Datalogix through his firm Breyer Capital and is a member of the Datalogix board.
Datalogix was started in 2002 and was originally named NextAction. The company changed its name and direction in 2009 to follow its current course. The company employs 430 people.
What happens next for Datalogix remains to be determined. Oracle said it expects Datalogix’s management and employees to join the company’s Data Cloud unit and it is reviewing the existing Datalogix product roadmap.
