Some rights reserved by technochick
On the surface this might not seem like a Canadian success story, Eloqua was acquired by Oracle for $871MM. Eloqua by all appearances is a publicly traded company with headquarters in Vienna, VA. But they are probably the best kept secret in the Toronto technology community. Eloqua was founded in Toronto in 1999 by my friend and co-founder, Mark Organ (LinkedIn,Follow @markorgan) along with Abe Wagner (LinkedIn) and Steve Woods (LinkedIn, Follow @stevewoods). This is nearly a $1B dollar deal that was born and breed in Toronto (yes, I can do basic math it’s $129MM short but that’s pocket change and unlike when Siebel acquired Janna in 2000 for $975MM at the time of the deal the price changing with the Siebel’s stock price, this is an all cash deal). I had started figuring that it would be Salesforce that acquired Eloqua, so I am surprised that it is Oracle, and so soon after their IPO. Here is a great analysis of the marketing automation industry and the assessment for Marketo, Act-On, ExactTarget, etc.
Congratulations to all of the Eloqua employees. I continue to hear stories about an amazing group of people including:
- Matt Grantham (LinkedIn)
- Ryan Brunner (LinkedIn)
- Aaron Rothschild (LinkedIn)
- Dessy Daskalov (LinkedIn)
- Mike MacFarlane (LinkedIn)
- Ethan Henry (LinkedIn)
- Paul Teshima (LinkedIn, @pteshima)
- Andrew Stok (LinkedIn)
- Rob Paulsen (LinkedIn
- Brett Shellhammer (LinkedIn)
- There are others like Jill Rowley (LinkedIn, Follow @Jill_Rowley) who rumor has it might be superhuman.
It’s an amazing story that still has a big chunk of the product development team based in Toronto. Congrats to the entire Eloqua team and alumni.
Indeed, congratulations. I actually wrote about the acquisition today as well.
http://ca.finance.yahoo.com/blogs/insight/why-oracle-bought-one-canada-secretly-successful-startups-121301370.html
Thanks David, for your recognition of the Canadian contribution to Eloqua’s success.