Dun & Bradstreet ($DNB) announced the acquisition of Avention after the markets closed today.  The acquisition came almost on the two year anniversary of Dun & Bradstreet’s successful acquisition of NetProspex.

Avention was acquired for $150 million net of cash assumed.  Avention generated $60 million in 2016 revenue.

“We are excited to combine our world-class company and contact data with Avention’s best-in-class technology that is fully integrated with the leading software platforms utilized by B2B sales professionals and marketers,” said Dun & Bradstreet COO Josh Peirez. “Avention is a natural fit that will allow us to deliver tremendous value to customers, and the synergies we can capture put the value of this deal well above the purchase price of the acquisition.”

Dun & Bradstreet combined with Avention functionality offers the potential for a powerful sales intelligence service with strong marketing capabilities.  Both Dun & Bradstreet and Avention have been expanding their marketing capabilities and ABM messaging.

Dun and Bradstreet content assets include

• 265 million active and inactive global companies
• D-U-N-S Numbers
• Global Linkage
• NetProspex executive file with emails and direct dials
• Hoover’s editorially-written profiles
• First Research industry overviews

Dun & Bradstreet emphasized the following Avention capabilities:

• An intuitive, dynamic user interface to deliver intelligence that can be customized to meet each user’s needs.
• Powerful alerts, triggers, and profiling capabilities that leverage both structured data (e.g. industry codes, address, and employee information) and unstructured data (e.g. social content, news feeds, and analyst reports).
• Simple integration with the mission-critical systems that your teams use every day, including SFDC, Dynamics, Marketo, and Eloqua, as well as homegrown systems used by many companies.

Combined, Hoover’s, NetProspex, Avention, and D&B alliance products generated over $200 million in revenue.  The acquisition provides Dun & Bradstreet with a leading sales intelligence platform as well as several legacy products:

• Avention OneSource: Sales Intelligence with advanced company research tools and a light predictive analytics capability.  Distinguishing features include Conceptual Search, Business Signals, Ideal Profile Scores, Sales Triggers, and Smart Lists.  The OneSource platform supports CRM connectors for Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, and Oracle Cloud for Sales as well as marketing automation connectors for Marketo and Eloqua (Oracle Marketing Cloud).
• Avention DataVision: DataVision, launched in 2016, supports data enrichment, segmentation, look-a-like prospecting, and TAM analysis.
• iSell: A legacy sales product
• Global Business Browser: A legacy company research product
• OneSource Open Connector: API

Dun & Bradstreet offers an overlapping set of products that will need to be rationalized following the acquisition.  Hoover’s is a direct competitor of OneSource and iSell.  While it has a lower price point than these offerings, it has been struggling for several years with declining revenue and limited investment.  As such, Hoover’s is unlikely to see significant investment in the near-term as Dun & Bradstreet moves to integrate the D&B WorldBase company and contact file, NetProspex contacts, and First Research industry overviews into Avention.  Hoover’s also maintains 42,000 editorially written company profiles which would also add value to the Avention Global Content Live Platform.

NetProspex’ Workbench service offers many features similar to DataVision.  Workbench has an advantage in data matching logic and data verification tools (e.g. phone, email, and address verification), but it is likely that the Avention company universe will be quickly D-U-N-S Numbered and that DUNSMatch logic will be incorporated into Avention services.  As such, it is unclear whether Workbench or DataVision would be the long-term hygiene front-end for Dun & Bradstreet.

“Dun & Bradstreet is uniquely positioned to serve this growing market with its foundational company and contact data, which will soon be delivered through Avention’s best-in-class software offerings,” stated Dun & Bradstreet in a press release.  “The combination provides a tremendous opportunity to evolve Dun & Bradstreet’s Traditional Prospecting offerings into a category that serves critical B2B sales and marketing needs.

“The Sales Acceleration space offers a big opportunity for Dun & Bradstreet. We believe as the global leader in commercial information we are well positioned to take market share and accelerate our growth strategy,” said Dun & Bradstreet CEO Bob Carrigan. “Bolstered by the success of our recent M&A activity, which has exceeded its acquisition economics, we will continue to explore smart, tuck-in acquisitions that, combined with disciplined execution, will help us to further expand our leadership in this category as well as other areas of our business.”

One potential area of conflict may be around Data.com.  Dun & Bradstreet provides their WorldBase file to Data.com Prospector and does not offer a D&B360 Salesforce.com connector.  However, Avention has a robust AppExchange connector which competes against both Data.com Prospector and Data.com Clean.