Cleo Communications LLC, simply referred to as Cleo, is a privately held software company founded in 1976. The company is best known for its ecosystem integration platform, Cleo Integration Cloud with RADAR.

History

Cleo originally began as a division of Phone 1 Inc., a voice data gathering systems manufacturer, and built data concentrators and

terminal emulator A terminal emulator, or terminal application, is a computer program that emulates a video terminal within some other display architecture. Though typically synonymous with a shell or text terminal, the term ''terminal'' covers all remote term ...

s — multi-bus computers, modems, and terminals to interface with

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

mainframes via bisynchronous communications. The company then began developing

mainframe A mainframe computer, informally called a mainframe or big iron, is a computer used primarily by large organizations for critical applications like bulk data processing for tasks such as censuses, industry and consumer statistics, enterpris ...

middleware in the 1980s, and with the rise of the PC, moved into B2B data communications and secure

file transfer File transfer is the transmission of a computer file through a communication channel from one computer system to another. Typically, file transfer is mediated by a communications protocol. In the history of computing, numerous file transfer protoc ...

software. Since being acquired in 2012, the company’s offerings have evolved into Cleo Integration Cloud, a platform for enterprise business integration.

Business

Based in

Rockford, Illinois Rockford is a city in Winnebago County, Illinois, Winnebago and Ogle County, Illinois, Ogle counties in the U.S. state of Illinois. Located in far northern Illinois on the banks of the Rock River (Mississippi River tributary), Rock River, Rockfor ...

(USA), with offices in

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

, Pennsylvania, London, and Bangalore, Cleo has about 400 employees and more than 4,100 direct customers. The company's flagship offering, Cleo Integration Cloud, provides both on-premise and cloud-based integration technologies and comprises solutions for B2B/ EDI, application integration, data movement and data transformation. Previous products now incorporated into the Cleo Integration Cloud platform include Cleo Harmony, Cleo Clarify, and Cleo Jetsonic. Cleo solutions span a variety of industries, including manufacturing,

logistics Logistics is the part of supply chain management that deals with the efficient forward and reverse flow of goods, services, and related information from the point of origin to the Consumption (economics), point of consumption according to the ...

and

supply chain A supply chain is a complex logistics system that consists of facilities that convert raw materials into finished products and distribute them to end consumers or end customers, while supply chain management deals with the flow of goods in distri ...

, retail,

third-party logistics Third-party logistics (abbreviated as 3PL, or TPL) is an organization's long-term commitment of outsourcing its distribution services to third-party logistics businesses. Third-party logistics providers typically specialize in integrated opera ...

, warehouse management and transportation management, healthcare, financial services and government. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs adopted Cleo's

fax Fax (short for facsimile), sometimes called telecopying or telefax (short for telefacsimile), is the telephonic transmission of scanned printed material (both text and images), normally to a telephone number connected to a printer or other out ...

technology, Cleo Streem, in 2013 when in need of

FIPS 140-2 The Federal Information Processing Standard Publication 140-2, (FIPS PUB 140-2), is a United States, U.S. government of the United States, government computer security standardization, standard used to approve Cryptographic module, cryptographic ...

-compliant technology to protect information, and the City of

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Georgia (U.S. state), most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It is the county seat, seat of Fulton County, Georg ...

has used Cleo Streem for network and desktop faxing since 2006. Cleo also serves U.S. transportation logistics company MercuryGate International and SaaS-based food logistics organization ArrowStream. It powers the architecture for several major supply chain companies, such as Blue Yonder and

SAP Sap is a fluid transported in the xylem cells (vessel elements or tracheids) or phloem sieve tube elements of a plant. These cells transport water and nutrients throughout the plant. Sap is distinct from latex, resin, or cell sap; it is a s ...

. Cleo integrates the pharmaceutical supply chain for such companies as

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. Key partners include FourKites and ClientsFirst, among many others. Cleo customers also include household brands such as

New Balance New Balance Athletics, Inc. (NB), doing business as New Balance, is one of the world's major sports footwear and apparel manufacturers. Based in Boston, Massachusetts, the multinational corporation was founded in 1906 as the New Balance Arch Su ...

Barilla ''Barilla'' refers to several species of salt-tolerant (halophyte) plants that, until the 19th century, were the primary source of soda ash and hence of sodium carbonate. The word "barilla" was also used directly to refer to the soda ash obtain ...

, Duraflame, Reddy Ice, and

Brother Industries is a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational electronics and electrical equipment company headquartered in Nagoya, Japan. Its products include Printer (computing), printers, multifunction printers, desktop computers, consumer and indu ...

. Cleo has partnerships with more than 300 system integrator, reseller, and technology companies including VAI, SrinSoft, Vertext, Remedi, and delaPlex. In May 2023, Cleo announced it entered a global partnership with consulting and multinational information technology services company, Cognizant (NASDAQ: CTSH). Together, the companies announced CCIB, powered by Cleo, which is a B2B iPaaS solution that provides B2B managed services with built-in, scalable infrastructure on the cloud. The solution comprises elements from Cleo’s flagship offering, Cleo Integration Cloud.

Expansion

In June 2014, Cleo opened an office in

for members of its support and engineering teams. In 2014, the company hired Jorge Rodriguez as Senior Vice President of Product Development and John Thielens as Vice President of Technology. Cleo hired Dave Brunswick as Vice President of Solutions for North America in 2015, and Cleo hired Ken Lyons to lead global sales in 2016. Lyons now serves as the company's Chief Revenue Officer. More recent additions to the company's leadership team include Vipin Mittal, Vice President, Customer Experience, and Tushar Patel, CMO. Cleo opened its product development facility in Bengaluru, India, in 2015 and expanded its hybrid cloud integration teams into a new office there in 2017. The company also opened a London office in 2016 and expanded its network of channel partners in

EMEA Europe, the Middle East and Africa, commonly known by its acronym EMEA among the North American business spheres, is a geographical region used by institutions, governments and global spheres of marketing, media and business when referring to t ...

. In 2016, Cleo acquired EXTOL International, a Pottsville, Pa.-based business and EDI integration and

data transformation In computing, data transformation is the process of converting data from one format or structure into another format or structure. It is a fundamental aspect of most data integrationCIO.com. Agile Comes to Data Integration. Retrieved from: https ...

company for an undisclosed amount. In 2017, the company moved its headquarters from

Loves Park, Illinois Loves Park is a city in Boone and Winnebago counties in the U.S. state of Illinois. Most of the city is in Winnebago County, with a tiny sliver in the east located in Boone County. The population was 23,397 at the 2020 census. Loves Park is p ...

, to Rockford. In 2021 the company received a significant growth investment from

H.I.G. Capital H.I.G. Capital, LLC is a global alternative investment firm with $69 billion of capital under management. Headquartered in Miami, Florida, H.I.G. specializes in providing both debt capital, debt and equity capital to middle-market company, middle ...

. In July 2022, Cleo opened a new, 5,000-square-foot office located in Chicago's Loop. In November 2022, Cleo launched an accelerator for

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a set of enterprise accounting and sales software products offered by Microsoft. Its flagship product, Dynamics GP, was founded in 1981. Applications Microsoft Dynamics is largely made up of products developed by co ...

SCM-to-X12 and a connector for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. These pre-built solutions allow businesses and users to quickly build integration flows that integrate their digital ecosystems. In March 2023, Cleo released CIC PAVE (Procurement Automation and Vendor Enablement). PAVE provides customers with enhanced supply chain visibility via a supplier portal that allows the customer to keep vendor interaction in a single location, even if they cannot use EDI or have API-ready applications.

Certification

Cleo regularly submits its products to Drummond Group's interoperability software testing for AS2, AS3 and ebMS 2.0. In January 2020, Cleo announced that its new application connector for Acumatica ERP has been recognized as an Acumatica-Certified Application (ACA). The company also holds SOC 2, Type 2 certification.

Awards

Cleo was a

Xerox Xerox Holdings Corporation (, ) is an American corporation that sells print and electronic document, digital document products and services in more than 160 countries. Xerox was the pioneer of the photocopier market, beginning with the introduc ...

partner of the year award for five years, from 2009 to 2014. The Cleo Streem solution integrates with Xerox multi-function products, providing customers with solutions for network fax and interactive messaging needs. Cleo was named to Food Logistics’ FL100+ Top Software and Technology Providers Lists in 2016, 2017, 2019 an
2020
Cleo CEO, Mahesh Rajasekharan was named an

Ernst & Young EY, previously known as Ernst & Young, is a multinational corporation, multinational professional services partnership, network based in London, United Kingdom. Along with Deloitte, KPMG and PwC, it is one of the Big Four accounting firms, Big F ...

Entrepreneur Of The Year 2022 Midwest Award winner. Rajasekharan is serving as a judge for the 2023 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of the Year Awards. As of April 2022, Cleo has been named a Leader in EDI on the G2 Grid, a peer-to-peer review site, for 20 straight quarters. In Spring 2023, Cleo won 23 G2 awards—including EDI Leader Enterprise, MFT Leader Enterprise, On-Premise Data Integration Best Support Enterprise, and iPaaS High Performer Asia.

References

{{Reflist, 3 EDI software companies Software companies based in Illinois Network management Managed file transfer File transfer protocols Data management Software companies of the United States