Philly success story Crossbeam is merging with a Parisian company

Crossbeam, the data-driven partnerships SaaS company founded by veteran Philadelphia entrepreneur Bob Moore, has announced a merger with Paris-based Reveal.

Talks about merging started at the beginning of 2024 because they were each getting requests from customers to integrate with the other, Moore told Technical.ly. Both run platforms that use data to help companies collaborate.

“Our platforms, they kind of work like LinkedIn for data,” Moore said. “Imagine a world where there were two LinkedIns — and half your friends are on one and half of them are on another. It’s just not as valuable if it’s not all under one hood.”

Moore’s journey to Crossbeam closely mirror’s Reveal’s CEO Simon Bouchez’s own story. Both entrepreneurs had founded and sold previous startups before setting out to create partner ecosystem platforms.

We’re both obsessed with this really, really interesting and changing business problem.Bob Moore Crossbeam

Moore founded Crossbeam in 2018, about a year before Bouchez started Reveal, which connects companies and shares customer relationship management data. The two entities generally served different customers in different markets, but the founders were aware of each other, Moore said. They met for the first time at a conference in 2022 and learned they had more in common than they’d imagined.

“We were kindred spirits,” Moore said. “We’re both obsessed with this really, really interesting and changing business problem that we were trying to solve.”

Crossbeam, founded by Moore and Buck Ryan, has seen a lot of success over the years, including a $76 million Series C in 2021. The following year, it acquired networking tool Partnered.

This latest merger was an all stock deal, Moore said. The combined company will operate under Crossbeam’s branding, with Bouchez becoming COO and Moore remaining CEO. They’ll keep Reveal’s Paris office.

A few dozen employees from Reveal will join Crossbeam. Some redundant roles from both companies were eliminated during the merger, affecting around 10% of the workforce, according to Moore (Crossbeam’s layoffs last spring saw 15% of staff let go). The combined company will have 135 employees.

Eventually, everything  will be housed on Crossbeam’s platform, into which Reveal’s features will be integrated.

However, the companies are not in a rush to consolidate and Reveal will not be shut down any time soon, Moore said. This allows time for Reveal’s customers to move over to the combined platform.

“We really are going to be an essential source of data,” Moore said, “about what your partners and your partner ecosystem can do to help you win deals.”

Sarah Huffman is a 2022-2024 corps member for Report for America, an initiative of The Groundtruth Project that pairs young journalists with local newsrooms. This position is supported by the Lenfest Institute for Journalism.