Episerver To Acquire Optimizely

Episerver announced its intention to purchase Optimizely, the optimization and experimentation platform.

Goldman-Backed Startup Optimizely to Be Bought by Episerver

(Disclaimer: I’m an employee of Episerver. I was slightly involved in the acquisition process, mainly advising about its intersection with the CMS product.)

With this, Episerver is taking a big swing at the DXP market. Its always had personalization and added a CDP a few years ago. But this is a big push into content optimization and “post publish” content functionality.

Even discounting for my bias, this is a big acquisition that will shake up the WCM/DXP market. It expands Episerver’s headcount significantly, provides a West Coast office, and brings Optimizely’s existing stable of hundreds of customers.

In the hours post-announcement, I had a half-dozen friends from the industry proactively reach out with nothing but positive feedback on the move.