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October 22, 2020

Qlik Continues Buying Spree with Blendr.io Deal

Qlik Technologies, the private equity-owned business intelligence software and visual analytics vendor, continued its acquisition spree with a deal for Blendr.io, a Belgian-based embedded platform services vendor.

Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Blendr.io’s integration services platform automates data integration and orchestration of software services application and cloud data sources.

Qlik, King of Prussia, Penn., said Thursday (Oct.22) it plans to expand the scope of Blendr.io’s standalone integration platform service to cover new analytics use cases, including speedier access to “analytics-ready” data derived from more than 500 software services applications.

The three-year-old startup based in Ghent, Belgium, bases its embedded platform on a four-layer architecture that includes connectivity, integration, user interface and embedding as well as management layers. The startup’s brand name refers to the platform’s ability to “blend” a low-code visual builder used for scheduling and adding business logic.

The next layer embeds integrations into a cloud user interface that allows customers to integrate business operations like marketing and sales as well as cloud-based functions such as customer relationship management.

The startup’s platform also integrates with application tracking systems and other enterprise management systems. It is touted as an easier way to feed AI platforms by automating data collection from cloud-based applications. Captured data can then be used by data scientists for predictive analytics, Qlik noted.

Qlik said it expects to integrate Blendr.io’s technologies into its cloud-based data and analytics platforms after the new year.

The Blendr.io acquisition is the third this year by Qlik, which was itself acquired by the private equity firm Thomas Bravo in 2016 for about $3 billion.

Since then Qlik has made a string of acquisitions. This year alone, Qlik has snapped up RoxAI and Knarr, the latter a real-time data analytics software specialist. The amount of the August deal was not disclosed.

In January, Qlik acquired RoxAI, developers of software that pushes alerts to analysts. The alerting software also integrates with Qlik’s AI platform, Sense.

The RoxAI deal followed Qlik’s acquisition of enterprise data management startup Podium Data. The July 2018 deal accelerated Qlik’s shift to beyond data analytics as it launched its multi-cloud strategy aimed at helping customers squeeze more value out of data that can then be used across organizations. At the time, Qlik said Podium would serve as the foundation of its data hub.

Qlik’s latest deal was disclosed the same day Tibco Software announced its acquisition of Information Builders Inc.

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