Akeneo is a technology company that develops

product information management Product information management (PIM) is the process of managing all the information required to market and sell products through distribution channels. This product data is created by an internal organization to support a multichannel marketing s ...

(PIM) and product data intelligence software to improve

customer experience Customer experience, sometimes abbreviated to CX, is the totality of cognitive, affective, sensory, and behavioral responses of a customer during all stages of the consumption process including pre-purchase, consumption, and post-purchase st ...

. The company was founded in 2013 by Frédéric de Gombert, Benoit Jacquemont, Nicolas Dupont and Yoav Kutner. Akeneo is headquartered in

Nantes, France Nantes (, ; ; or ; ) is a city in the Loire-Atlantique department of France on the Loire, from the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast. The city is the List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, sixth largest in France, with a pop ...

and has offices in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

and

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

with more than 400 employees. It has worked with customers including Shop.com,

Fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserve ...

, Midland Scientific,

Air Liquide Air Liquide S.A. ( , ; literally " liquid air") is a French multinational company which supplies industrial gases and services to various industries including medical, chemical and electronic manufacturers. Founded in 1902, after Linde it is ...

Rexel Rexel S.A. is a French company specializing in the distribution of electrical, heating, lighting and plumbing equipment, but also in renewable energies and energy efficiency products and services. The group has 1,950 points of sale in 19 count ...

Babolat Babolat () is a French tennis, badminton, and padel equipment company, headquartered in Lyon, best known for its strings and tennis racquets which are used by professional and recreational players worldwide. The company has made strings sinc ...

LVMH LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE (), commonly known as LVMH, is a French multinational holding company and conglomerate that specializes in luxury goods and has its headquarters in Paris, France. The company was formed in 1987 through the ...

and

Auchan Auchan () is a French multinational retail group headquartered in Croix, France. It was founded in 1961 by Gérard Mulliez and is owned by the Mulliez family, who has 95% stake in the company. With 354,851 employees, of which 261,000 have 5% ...

History

Before founding Akeneo, Frédéric de Gombert, Benoit Jacquemont and Nicolas Dupont had worked together at the

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

company, Smile. They began developing a single product database to compete with Excel and brought Yoav Kutner onboard in founding Akeneo. The name comes from the Greek word

akene An achene (; ), also sometimes called akene and occasionally achenium or achenocarp, is a type of simple dry fruit produced by many species of flowering plants. Achenes are monocarpellate (formed from one carpel) and indehiscent (they do not open ...

, like the achenes' fruits that contains all the fruits' information and spread them along the winds. The company started producing a system for managing product information for use across distribution channels. Available under the open source license 3.0, the first public beta of Akeneo PIM was released in September 2013. In January 2016, the company's chief executive officer, Frédéric de Gombert, received the prize Young Entrepreneur Prize in Digital from the French newspaper, ''

La Tribune () is a French weekly financial newspaper founded in 1985 by Bruno Bertez. Its main competitor is the French newspaper '' Les Échos'', which is currently owned by LVMH. From 1993 to 2007, was part of LVMH. In 2010, Alain Weill, the chair ...

''. Akeneo was a co-founder and partner of the Open Source School created by Smile and the École privée des sciences informatiques. The company also opened offices in Düsseldorf, Germany and

Boston, Massachusetts Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

during early 2016. The

Deloitte Technology Fast 500 The Deloitte Technology Fast 500 Awards are organized and overseen by the global professional services firm Deloitte, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited. These awards recognize the 500 technology companies with the highest growth rates across vari ...

named Akeneo on its EMEA list for 2017. Akeneo expanded into Israel after acquiring Sigmento, product data automation startup company. The acquisition worked to merge Sigmento's technology with Akeneo's products for data enrichment automation. The company also opened offices in Spain, Poland and the United Kingdom during early 2018. By late 2018, Akeneo had partnered with

Magento Magento is an open-source e-commerce platform written in PHP. Magento source code is distributed under the Open Software License. Magento was acquired by Adobe Inc in May 2018 for $1.68 billion. More than 150,000 online stores have been cre ...

to integrate its PIM software with the

e-commerce E-commerce (electronic commerce) refers to commercial activities including the electronic buying or selling products and services which are conducted on online platforms or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile co ...

system. In March 2019, the company expanded into Italy and later announced that it would be opening an office in Australia in 2020. Akeneo was recognized as a leader in product information management applications on an IDC Marketscape report in late 2019. In September 2023, it was announced Akeneo had acquired the

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

-headquartered AI

data collection Data collection or data gathering is the process of gathering and measuring information on targeted variables in an established system, which then enables one to answer relevant questions and evaluate outcomes. Data collection is a research com ...

, cleansing, categorisation and enrichment platform, Unifai.

Funding

Before beginning official funding, KIMA Venture and Nestadio Capital contributed €350,000 to the company in 2013. In September 2014, Akeneo received initial funding of $2.3 million led by Alven Capital. The company raised a

Series B A venture round is a type of funding round used for venture capital financing, by which startup companies obtain investment, generally from venture capitalists and other institutional investors. The availability of venture funding is among the ...

funding round of $13 million led by Partech Ventures in March 2017.

Salesforce Ventures Salesforce, Inc. is an American cloud-based software company headquartered in San Francisco, California. It provides applications focused on sales, customer service, marketing automation, e-commerce, analytics, artificial intelligence, and appl ...

made a strategic investment in the company as it continued to expand in North America. It completed a $46 million

Series C A venture round is a type of funding round used for venture capital financing, by which startup companies obtain investment, generally from venture capitalists and other institutional investors. The availability of venture funding is among the p ...

funding round in September 2019 led by

Summit Partners Summit Partners is an American investment firm based in Boston, Massachusetts. The firm focuses on investing in technology, healthcare, life sciences and other growth industries. Background Summit Partners was founded in 1984 by E. Roe Stamps ...

. Finally, a last $135 million Serie D funding was completed in March 2022, always led by

Products

Akeneo's products include two versions of its open-source PIM software: a free community edition (CE) as well as an enterprise

software as a service Software as a service (SaaS ) is a cloud computing service model where the provider offers use of application software to a client and manages all needed physical and software resources. SaaS is usually accessed via a web application. Unlike o ...

(SaaS) edition (EE). More than 70,000 companies use the free community edition (CE) version. Akeneo PIM open source software is built under license OSL 3.0 and written in PHP. In addition, the company launched additional modules for onboarding product information from suppliers, the Akeneo Onboarder, content syndication and AI-based curation of product content capabilities. In February 2020, the company released PIM 4.0 that included features such an asset manager, data quality insights, product attribute mapping and connection management by using API-based integration. Akeneo PIM is featured in the leader quadrant on the G2 PIM vendor grid.

Versions

''Note that the names of CE releases are based on

Bugs Bunny Bugs Bunny is a cartoon character created in the late 1930s at Warner Bros. Cartoons (originally Leon Schlesinger, Leon Schlesinger Productions) and Voice acting, voiced originally by Mel Blanc. Bugs is best known for his featured roles in the ' ...

episodes, and EE releases on vegetals that have akenes.''

References

{{Reflist

External links

Official website
Free content management systems Software companies of France Software using the Open Software License