Sitecore makes its CDP move

With today’s announcement that it has entered a definitive agreement to acquire Dublin-based Boxever, Sitecore will become the latest ecommerce and CMS provider to include an integrated CDP as part of its offering. The news comes some fourteen months after Sitecore competitor Acquia picked up enterprise CDP AgilOne.

As part of the same announcement, Sitecore will also acquire Minneapolis-based ecommerce platform Four51. Four51’s API-driven, headless solution, which can deliver customer experience direct to a range of channels and devices. Sitecore is describing this as complementary to their existing solutions.

Where Four51 fits. Given that Sitecore provides hybrid or headless CMS options, we asked how Four51 enhances the offering. CEO Steve Tzikakis told us: “Sitecore’s current CMS platform is headless. Four51 will add a composable, headless commerce solution that will be quickly and seamlessly integrate into our product portfolio. Four51’s highly flexible solution tailors to the unique needs of business buyers.”

Starting to spend. These acquisitions follow on the heels of Sitecore’s attention-grabbing $1.2 billion funding round in January, which suggests that Tzikakis had a wish-list clearly in mind.

The moves certainly reflect Tzikakis’ belief that: “Sitecore is a category leader that hasn’t had the opportunity to take the next step. We now need to become a ‘billion-dollar company.’ That’s not so much a financial objective, it’s more a behavioral change. The pace with which we release products, the integration of our products, the level of service we provide to our customers, how we operate with our partners and taking advantage of our biggest asset, our own employees.”

The cost of the acquisitions, which are expected to close by end of March, has not been disclosed.

Why we care. As we’ve said before, with adoption of digital commerce expanding, even among verticals never considered digital-first, the race between ecommerce vendors is white hot, with Episerver acquiring (and then re-branding as) Optimizely, and now these moves by Sitecore.