Infor fully acquires retail analytics provider Predictix

The privately-held ERP software company entered a strategic partnership with and invested $25 million in cloud-native predictive and prescriptive analytics provider Predictix back in January.    Enterprise resources planning software provider Infor has acquired cloud-native retail analytics provider Predictix, the company said in a statement.
   Selling Predictix investors include Marlin Equity Partners, Kinetic Ventures and ITC Holding Company. Financial terms of the purchase were not disclosed.
   Infor entered a strategic partnership with and invested $25 million in Atlanta, Ga.-based Predictix back in January.
   Under the partnership, Infor became a reseller of Predictix applications and integrated them with its own CloudSuite Retail system as well as those of e-commerce platform GT Nexus. The company acquired GT Nexus for $675 million in August 2015 in an effort to leverage its strength in cloud-based global transportation execution, visibility, order management and supplier financing.
   The latest announcement is another step for the Charles Phillips-led firm in its efforts to wrest market share from established global ERP software leaders Oracle and SAP by focusing on cloud-based solutions and ease of deployment. Phillips himself is a former Oracle executive.
   According to Infor, Predictix saw subscriptions for its software-as-a-service analytics products grow more than 40 percent in 2015 and at a 60 percent rate in 2016 following the investment by Infor. The company manages more than $60 billion in weekly forecasts and counts five of the top 15 global retailers as customers.
   LogicBlox, the technology platform underlying all of Predictix’s predictive and prescriptive analytics applications, has attracted funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
   “The synergies between Infor and Predictix were greater than we could have hoped, and we’ve come to appreciate a great cultural alignment where both teams have passionate people who work hard and want to make a difference in retail and beyond,” Phillips said of the deal. “Buying out the other Predictix investors makes sense to bring the teams together and provide the scale and resources needed to accelerate the retail revolution.”
   “The past six months of collaboration between Infor and Predictix has delivered innovation at a pace never seen before in retail software, which is crucial as the industry battles disruption,” added Molham Aref, CEO of Predictix. “Becoming part of Infor will further accelerate our retail revolution by providing scale and integrating two teams that sit at the intersection of cloud, analytics, machine learning, and self-service.”
   “From my point of view, long in the tooth time-series approaches to forecasting and analytics that inform pricing, assortment, promotion, and other demand shaping tactics have run their course. They fall far short of what’s needed today,” said Greg Girard, program director of omni-channel retail analytics at IDC Retail Insights. “They were designed and tuned for a different era-before elastic, scalable, subscription cloud environments, operationalized machine learning, inexpensive data storage, and the complexities, scale, and speed of omni-channel retail. Going forward leading retailers will take advantage of these advances for financial benefits, operational efficiencies, and customer loyalty.”