Akeneo Lands $46M To Enhance Product Info For Retailers

Saas startup has CRM solution

Akeneo announced Thursday (Sept. 12)  it has raised $46 million in funding led by Summit Partners.

Existing investors Alven, Partech and Salesforce Ventures, as well as Akeneo’s board member Stephan Dietrich, also participated in the round. The company will use the new funding to further invest in its sales and marketing efforts in the United States, as well as expand research and development, including product data intelligence, and hire more than 100 additional staff in the upcoming year.

Akeneo’s open source software as a service (SaaS) platform manages product information and omnichannel catalogs, becoming the most used product information management (PIM) platform in the world. In addition, the company has achieved compound triple-digit revenue growth for the sixth consecutive year.

“In an omnichannel world, PXM represents the next evolution of product information management, which is becoming the new CRM of product data,” Steffan Peyer, a principal at Summit Partners who will join the Akeneo Board of Directors, said in a press release. “We believe Akeneo’s highly-focused product approach, as well as its hyper-connectivity with the broader commerce stack, makes it uniquely capable of addressing complex and specific customer product information needs.”

“PXM is becoming a critical business application for brands and distributors to win in omnichannel retail,” added Fred de Gombert, CEO and co-founder of Akeneo. “Today’s consumers average more than five touchpoints before they make a purchasing decision, so it is increasingly important for brands to use a platform that delivers an integrated and consistent product experience.”

De Gombert continued, “With Summit’s extensive experience scaling global SaaS businesses and our existing investors’ continued support, we look forward to helping more brands and retail merchants deliver seamless product experiences with even greater efficiency and scale.

Akeno’s U.S. headquarters is in Boston, and the company has more than 180 employees across six countries, including France, Germany, the UK, Spain and Israel.