Dentsu Group Inc. announced it has entered an agreement to acquire a majority stake in global technology and services firm, Extentia.
Extentia will join Merkle, technology-enabled, data-driven customer experience management (CXM) company, within Dentsu Group’s international business, Dentsu International.
Extentia was established in 1998 and has nearly 800 staff in Pune and Bangalore, India.
This acquisition bolsters Merkle’s existing Salesforce capabilities, adding scale and additional geography in India.
Extentia adds expertise with more than 350 Salesforce certifications and new Salesforce App Cloud capabilities. The union will further expand Merkle’s existing offering in Salesforce Sales and Service Cloud capabilities.
Dentsu Group has more than 1,300 Salesforce trained staff and 3,500 Salesforce certifications, providing customer experience transformation solutions that are aligned with Salesforce Cloud capabilities.
Merkle’s Salesforce offering is underpinned by its longstanding expertise in outcome-led customer experience, driven by data and enabled by marketing technology, cementing its unique positioning in the Salesforce ecosystem.
The acquisition demonstrates Dentsu Group’s commitment to enabling clients to deliver best-in-class differentiated and connected experiences across the entire customer journey. It aligns with Dentsu Group’s stated ambition of reaching 50% of net revenue generated by Customer Transformation and Technology (CT&T), encompassing the fast growth areas of customer experience and commerce.
Michael Komasinski, global CEO, Merkle, said: “As one of Salesforce’s largest partners and its top agency partner, we owe it to our customers to deliver world-class, cross-functional, cross-platform expertise.”
“Extentia differentiates itself through a design-first approach to its cloud-native technical and engineering product solutions, This strategic acquisition will allow Merkle and dentsu to meet the growing market demand for support our clients in driving complex architecture integrations.”
Umeed Kothavala, CEO at Extentia, said: “We’re incredibly excited about this next phase of Extentia’s journey. We’ve found a perfect partner in Merkle – complementing our respective strengths, scaling our digital capabilities, and delivering positive value for all our stakeholders.”
“Building on our capabilities across digital transformation, experience-centricity, and cloud platforms, Extentia and Merkle will deliver advanced solutions to more customers across the world than ever before. As a member of the growing Merkle family, we look forward to shared opportunities, limitless synergies, and collaborating on a shared vision of the future,” Kothavala added.
Extentia employees, including the leadership team, will make the transition to Merkle. The company will be known as “Extentia, a Merkle Company” with immediate effect and will develop joint go-to-market plans and accelerate growth across both businesses.