OneSource® Maker Avention Acquired by Dun & Bradstreet for $150 Million

Dun & Bradstreet, Inc., the New Jersey-based B2B data provisioning company, announced its acquisition of Avention, the maker of OneSource^® solutions. The acquisition makes Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) a commanding force in the Sales Acceleration market, enabling marketing and research teams to improve user engagement, enhance adoption and productivity, and improve overall business strategy.

Avention’s OneSource® solutions offer organizations a clear insight into customer database and market analytics, brought together through an agile technology platform. D&B acquiring Avention redefines the company’s objective to provide Sales and Marketing professionals with an accurate actionable market and business information, filtered by software.

Avention can be plugged into third-party CRM and marketing automation systems, helping marketers to leverage real-time data insights and sales intelligence placed delivered with an intuitive interface. Users can work with actionable data based on mission-critical importance.

Sales Acceleration refers to the process by virtue of which the sales team increases its velocity by including methods like data visualization and business intelligence. It is based on delivering refined information to sales teams, empowering them to make updated strategies, connecting it with buying signals. The Sales Acceleration marketing is currently evaluated at $10 billion, according to Outshell, Inc.

“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 Bob Carrigan, chairman and chief executive officer of Dun & Bradstreet. “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.”

“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 Josh Peirez, president and chief operating officer of Dun & Bradstreet. “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.”

D&B-Avention formulation will provide a tremendous push to the existing Traditional Prospecting offerings delivered through the acquired company’s cutting-edge software suite. The combination is capable of serving critical B2B sales and marketing demands leveraging Dun & Bradstreet’s Sales Acceleration product portfolio. The portfolio includes Hoover’s, Avention, NetProspex, and Strategic Alliance. In totality, the combined package of these products generated more than $200 million in 2016.