Source: Oracle Paid Over $400 Million For BigMachines To Grab More Salesforce Customers

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Larry Ellison

Oracle

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison

Oracle bought BigMachines on Wednesday.

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Oracle didn't reveal the terms of the deal but a source close to the company tells Business Insider that Oracle paid "hundreds of millions" at a valuation of about five-times the company's revenue.

BigMachines generated $58 million in 2012, Inc. reports, and was on track to nearly double that to about $100 million in 2013, this source said.

So we're looking at an acquisition of around the $400 million - $500 million mark.

Interestingly, Salesforce.com was an investor in BigMachines, as part of an undisclosed sum raised in 2012, although we understand that it took a minor stake. (The round was lead by Vista Equity Partners and JMI Equity.)

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There's two big reasons Oracle wanted BigMachines. 1) It gives Oracle a jump start with an enterprise cloud product called "Configure, Price and Quote" (CPQ). CPQ helps companies put together complex bids, quotes and proposals for customers. Oracle already has its own CPQ product, but it's classic software, not a cloud product.

2) BigMachines gives Oracle access to a whole bunch of Salesforce.com's customers. About half of BigMachines customers are Salesforce.com's customers, thanks to an offering it has called Big Machines Express. Express is built on Salesforce.com's software cloud, App Exchange.

Among BigMachine's 300+ enterprise customers are companies like Hewlett Packard, Symantec, GE, huge companies that Oracle wants to win to its own cloud.

Buying BigMachines is part of a bigger effort Oracle is making to compete more heavily with Salesforce.com. Late last year, Oracle bought big Salesforce.com partner Eloqua for $871 million, which gave it access to many Salesforce.com customers. Last week, Oracle bought a startup named Compendium, created by the cofounder of ExactTarget, a company Salesforce spent $2.5 billion to buy, it's largest-ever acquisition.

Oracle declined comment.

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