M&A rapid analysis: SAP buys working-capital specialist Taulia (Vendor comparison) [PRO]

Earlier today, just in time for its earnings report, SAP announced it was buying Taulia, a working-capital technology provider — that also happens to provide AP automation, e-invoicing and related capabilities. This marks a busy week on the corporate development front for SAP in the procurement technology sector, building on its previously announced strategic investment and close working partnership with CLM specialist Icertis.

For those close to the procurement and finance technology market, especially the working-capital area, the Taulia deal is likely not surprising. Not only was Taulia rumored to be “in market,” but it was an SAP partner with full, pre-existing technology integration, having replaced a previous SAP relationship with Prime Revenue, and complementing internal technology from SAP Ariba as well as a partnership with Raistone Capital.

Given the functional overlap between SAP Ariba and Taulia, we thought it would be prudent to start our coverage of the transaction by providing a quick synopsis of what Taulia does, as well as highlighting the various strengths and weaknesses of each provider on a comparative basis in the working capital, supplier information management (SIM), payment and invoicing areas — which will help to paint a clearer picture for potential head-scratchers as to why SAP would be so keen to add capability with some degree of Venn diagram overlap to its portfolio.

In subsequent Spend Matters PRO analysis, we will spitball the valuation and enterprise value of the transaction, offer customer and competitive recommendations, and explore how the transaction is likely to impact the landscape for working capital and B2B payments alongside procure-to-pay and AP automation.

In this post, we use our SolutionMap scoring and ranking information to compare the two firms in the areas in which they overlap. Taulia, appears in the AP Automation/I2P category, and SAP competes in the suite category of Source-to-Pay (which encompasses AP Automation/I2P), as well as other individual SolutionMap module and suite categories.

Let’s begin.