The supply chain software firm Llamasoft said today it has been acquired for $1.5 billion by Coupa Software Inc., a provider of business spend management (BSM) tools that says enterprise retailers need better software tools to handle sweeping changes in supply and demand that have rocked markets in 2020.
The deal comes as San Mateo, California-based Coupa says that the events of the past year continue to demonstrate the importance of supply chain agility, with companies working to adapt to changing consumer preferences, economic conditions, and the political landscape.
Coupa, which is a publicly traded company, says its market research shows that “business spend sentiment” has dropped across all industry sectors with the exception of health & life sciences, indicating that businesses have grown significantly more cautious about the outlook of the economy.
The company says those shifts have driven both demand uncertainty and supply volatility, a combination which pushes companies to seek supply chain technology to help assess alternatives and balance trade-offs. Ann Arbor, Michigan-based Llamasoft fits that need with its artificial intelligence (AI)-powered cloud platform that empowers companies to make smarter supply chain decisions, faster, Coupa said.
"We are witnessing an unprecedented shift in what businesses are demanding to effectively manage their supply chains. They need instant visibility, agile planning capabilities, and timely risk mitigation support," Rob Bernshteyn, chairman and CEO at Coupa, said in a release. "LLamasoft's deep supply chain expertise and sophisticated data science and modeling capabilities, combined with the roughly $2 trillion of cumulative transactional spend data we have in Coupa, will empower businesses with the intelligence needed to pivot on a dime.”
Llamasoft has grown aggressively in recent years, using the deep pockets of its private equity owner to make acquisitions—such as its 2019 move to buy the artificial intelligence (AI) firm Opex Analytics LLC—to expand its geographical reach through a partnership with the Chinese online retailing giant JD.com, and to launch new products, such as its supply chain decision-making platform, llama.ai.
Those moves followed Llamasoft’s decision in 2017 to sell a majority stake of the company to private equity firm TPG Capital, and its 2015 expansion when it bought the LogicTools supply chain applications suite from IBM Corp. and the supply chain software division from South Africa’s Barloworld Ltd.
“Combining Coupa's market-leading spend management execution core and broad market reach with LLamasoft's AI-powered supply chain analytics provides a unique opportunity to bring together digital transformation solutions that drive decision making and operational efficiency across the enterprise,” Llamasoft CEO Razat Gaurav said in a release.
