Capgemini announced today the acquisition of LiquidHub, a digital customer engagement firm that specializes in developing and delivering compelling customer experiences. This acquisition will reinforce Capgemini's Digital Consulting capabilities in North America and accelerates its portfolio shift in the region.

Established in 2000, LiquidHub counts industry leaders among its clients notably in financial services, healthcare and life sciences. Through this acquisition seasoned design thinkers, user-experience designers, digital architects and analytics specialists will join Capgemini's digital teams to create, for its clients, experiences that help to attract, acquire and retain customers.

Headquartered in Philadelphia, USA, with estimated 2017 revenues of around 200 million euros, this latest addition to the Group is totally aligned with Capgemini's growth plans focusing on Digital & Cloud in North America. Also, with an acquisition price of around two times revenues it illustrates the ability of the Group to execute its stated objective1 of targeted bolt-on acquisitions contributing up to 2% of incremental revenue, while allocating around 50% of its free cash-flow generation to acquisitions.

"LiquidHub's passion to help clients uncover new ways to engage with their customers, supported by robust digital expertise and a strong track record in complex technology execution, was a natural fit with the end to end digital services that Capgemini provides enterprises around the world," comments Paul Hermelin, Chairman and CEO, Capgemini Group. "The team's customer centric mindset was evident, and its impressive employee retention record is a testament to the strength of LiquidHub's purpose, vision and values that are complementary to those of Capgemini. I'm delighted to welcome them to the Group."

By leveraging its industry knowledge and extensive client experience LiquidHub has developed a series of marketing, sales, commerce, and service solutions across the entire engagement lifecycle. It has also built a set of highly scalable platforms-as-a-service for complete customer management. For example, its Specialty Pharma Insights Platform aligns interactions across channels to provide a more seamless experience for patients, healthcare providers and other channel partners, in the pharmaceutical industry; its Customer Acquisition Platform delivers seamless, secure digital customer engagement for clients in regulated industries through web, mobile and other digital channels.

"The challenge of omni-channel is connecting all the parts and pieces to deliver a unified and pleasurable experience to your customers. It's not physical or digital; it's the blended experience," comments Jonathan Brassington, CEO and Co-Founder, LiquidHub. "The full spectrum of Capgemini's digital transformation solutions and services coupled with its global reach will allow us to augment and expand our offerings for our current and future clients around the world: a very exciting prospect for the entire LiquidHub team."