Coupa Acquires Spend360 to Modernise Processes for Data Analysis

  • M&A Deals
  • 10.01.2017 01:15 pm

Coupa Software, a leader in cloud-based spend management, today announced that it has acquired substantially all of the assets of Spend360 International Ltd. to help companies digitise antiquated processes for data classification. Based outside London, Spend360 is an analytics solution that uses deep machine learning and artificial intelligence to structure and cleanse data in a format that finance and procurement can actually use.

With the addition of Spend360, Coupa will help transform outdated data classification processes that rely on humans for accuracy with a modern, digitised system that uses innovative technologies to classify data more quickly and accurately. Embedding Spend360 intelligence in the Coupa platform will make it easier for businesses to reduce risks in their supplier base, grow savings opportunities, and increase efficiency and agility.

Together, Coupa and Spend360 will comprise a data warehouse that has, to date, processed or analysed more than a total of $1.3 trillion in spend – and counting - with a global category-level benchmarking and analytic capability that is competitively distinguished.

“Today, Coupa’s acquisition of Spend360 provides an invaluable offering to customers and partners. Tomorrow, it will drive an artificial intelligence and machine-learning capability to mine all the spend going through Coupa’s platform, guiding users to better decisions,” said Jason Busch, Founder of Spend Matters and Azul Partners. “When the dust settles from the announcement, customers will love this deal and competitors will cringe. Spend360 has quietly emerged as the gold standard for spend analysis classification and our recent analysis showed that they are the vendor to beat in that market.”

Spend360 increases the accuracy and precision of data classification while also decreasing the time and effort required to gain insights into spend management analysis. For its market leadership, Spend360 was one of only 22 organisations in the United Kingdom (UK) to win a coveted"Innovate UK" grant in 2015.

“When we created Spend360, we set out to automate the complex task of accurately classifying business spend data using the power of deep learning technology,” said Paddy Lawton, founder of Spend360. “Coupa gives us an opportunity to share our innovations with more customers and even larger data sets with a focus on network insights. We’re thrilled to be a part of the team.”

Understanding how money is spent is critical for the effective operation of any business. Yet, many businesses still lack clear visibility into spend. This obscurity is often caused by items such as disparate systems across the globe, employees spending outside of hard-to-use systems, and spend occurring in different languages or currencies. Coupa’s cloud platform for business spending is a full solution that drives high adoption from employees and suppliers and provides power applications for expert users across finance, procurement, and accounts payable.

“Spend360’s innovations around machine learning and artificial intelligence have dramatically improved results for their customers and will take Coupa to the next level,” said Rob Bernshteyn, CEO of Coupa. “Embedding Spend360 into our unified platform is a perfect way for us to increase value for customers through insights from their own spend data. However, it is the power of our customers’ combined spend, or the network effect, that will give them even more business value over time.”

Coupa expects the capabilities from Spend360 to be made available to select Coupa customers later this year. As part of the acquisition, the Spend360 team has joined Coupa to continue developing forward-thinking approaches for data classification and predictive insights. This team will be instrumental in helping Coupa drive even more value for its customers. The transaction closed at the end of December 2016 and financial terms were not disclosed. Coupa is not updating its guidance for its fourth quarter or fiscal year ending January 31, 2017, which it provided on December 5, 2016.  The acquisition is not expected to have a material impact on Coupa’s results of operations or financial condition for its fourth quarter or fiscal year ending January 31, 2017.

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