Batch Acquires Moonfish AI to Enhance Its Smart CRM

Batch acquires Moonfish AI to strengthen its intelligent CRM

Batch, the French customer relationship management (CRM) platform, recently announced the acquisition of Moonfish AI, a Parisian startup specializing in machine learning applied to customer marketing. This acquisition marks Batch's first external growth operation in its eleven years of existence. The goal is to enhance its capabilities in artificial intelligence and marketing software, thus opening a new phase of development for the company.

Founded in 2015 by Simon Dawlat and Antoine Guénard, Batch is taking a significant step forward with this strategic acquisition. The financial details of the deal have not been disclosed, but Batch reports approximately €20 million in annual recurring revenue and serves 350 brand clients across Europe. Among these clients are prestigious names such as Louis Vuitton, SNCF Connect, ManoMano, Rakuten, Orange, and Air Transat.

An acquisition in the form of a carve-out

The acquisition of Moonfish AI is structured as a carve-out from ClaraVista/Jakala, a consulting firm specializing in data and artificial intelligence. Batch thus acquires the technology, intellectual property, and the Moonfish AI brand. The fifteen employees of Moonfish AI will continue to work with Batch for about a year, providing services before a potential integration into the company. Simon Dawlat, co-founder of Batch, describes this approach as "leaner and more efficient than a traditional buyout."

Founded in 2018 within ClaraVista's research and development lab, Moonfish AI develops models capable of anticipating customer behaviors to optimize marketing campaigns. This technology was already being used by mutual clients such as L'Occitane, Printemps, Aroma-Zone, Oscaro, and Conforama. For Batch, this acquisition strengthens the "Predict" pillar of its product roadmap, alongside "Assist," dedicated to generative artificial intelligence for marketing teams, and "High," its vision of an increasingly autonomous CRM.

Agentic CRM: a new era for marketing

Behind this acquisition, Batch advocates for a broader vision of the evolution of the CRM market. Simon Dawlat explains that agentic CRM involves delegating more marketing decisions to machines. Specifically, the goal is to allow artificial intelligence to automatically determine when to contact a customer, through which channel, with what message, and at what time. This transformation could profoundly change the role of marketing teams.

However, the leader distinguishes two trajectories depending on the sectors. In luxury, where Batch collaborates with companies like Chanel or LVMH, customer relationships remain heavily human-driven, with AI serving as an assistance tool. In contrast, in retail or travel, which are already largely automated, some players are now ready to entrust the complete execution of campaigns to machines. "There will be a reconfiguration of the market and the role of marketers," anticipates Simon Dawlat.

Consolidation of the marketing software market

This operation comes at a particular time for European marketing software publishers. For years, the sector has been built through the layering of specialized tools. However, the arrival of generative AI, pressure on software budgets, and the search for more integrated platforms are reshuffling the cards. For Batch, Moonfish AI was one of the few strategic targets available in the European market. "There were only two: Moonfish and Tinyclues," states Simon Dawlat.

Eleven years after its founding, Batch now believes it has a sufficiently mature technological foundation to integrate external components without recreating the "patchwork" that characterizes, according to its leader, certain legacy suites like Adobe Campaign or Salesforce Marketing Cloud. And the hunt is just beginning. "We have a list of about forty to fifty companies in Europe that we are watching or following," says Simon Dawlat.

Data sovereignty as a commercial argument

This growth strategy also relies on a claimed sovereign positioning. More than 75% of Batch's capital is held by French shareholders, and all customer data is hosted on approximately 700 physical servers spread across three OVH data centers, without resorting to public cloud services. This argument appeals to clients such as the Ministry of Culture or BNP Paribas, in a context where issues of technological dependency and data localization are increasingly prominent in tenders. In a still highly fragmented market, and as the decline in valuations of SaaS publishers opens new consolidation opportunities, Batch no longer intends to remain a spectator.