DUBLIN, CA and LUTON, United Kingdom, Nov. 5, 2018 – Saba Software Inc., a global leader in talent development solutions, and a portfolio company of Vector Capital, announced it has closed its acquisition of Lumesse, a leading provider of talent acquisition, talent management and learning experience technology in Europe.

The combination of two iconic leaders creates a talent management software powerhouse with a vision for a new talent environment – one that creates an exceptional experience for people across every stage of their development experience, and delivers remarkable performance outcomes for their organizations. Now one of the largest independent talent management solutions providers, with close to $300M US in revenue and strong profitability to serve its long-term growth initiatives, Saba further deepens its pedigree in talent leadership, with 60 years of combined industry experience across 1,400 employees in 17 countries, serving more than 4,000 customers globally.

“This is a big day for Saba, our industry and more importantly, for our customers around the world,” said Phil Saunders, President and CEO, Saba. “Our acquisition strategy is aimed at becoming a transformative leader in talent management. With Lumesse, we are rapidly expanding Saba’s talent IP and building a global talent pool of professionals solely focused on the needs of HR leaders. Our combined team has deep expertise and local know-to to deliver outstanding value and results for our customers.”

The combination amplifies Saba’s expertise and accelerates its innovation across all areas of the talent lifecycle:

• Long known for its expertise in learning and performance, the acquisition of Lumesse gives Saba differentiated strength in talent acquisition with the leading recruiting platform in EMEA, including added specialization to meet the needs of recruitment process outsourcing (RPO).
• Saba will further bolster advances in modern learning with Lumesse’s learning experience capabilities, extensive multi-source content library and partnerships, and bespoke content creation expertise.
• Saba’s “connect to anything” platform philosophy and robust APIs will enable talent leaders to leverage best-in-suite capabilities from Saba solutions, while seamlessly integrating with an even broader ecosystem of HR and business applications.

“Saba is transforming into a ‘best-in-suite’ talent management provider, proving there is exponential value in having the combined expertise of market leaders under one roof,” said Michael Rochelle Chief Strategy Officer, Brandon Hall Group. “Bringing Lumesse’s capabilities to the Saba customer base will provide additional state of the art innovation to an already exciting portfolio of talent development solutions offered by Saba.”

As one company, Saba also bolsters its international depth, expertise, size and scale with:

• An expansive SaaS infrastructure and technology purpose-built for international markets, with the ability to meet complex global and regional security and compliance requirements.
• In-region experts with deep local understanding in the largest markets around the world.
• An extensive customer base that includes some of the world’s most iconic brands, and accelerated penetration capabilities in the fastest growing international markets.

“Lumesse is a core leader in integrated talent management with a very strong footprint and reputation in EMEA. The acquisition by Saba is a really significant event within the EMEA market and fast-tracks its broader international strategy,” said David Wilson, CEO of Fosway Group, Europe’s Leading HR Industry Analyst. “Depth and breadth of expertise is very important for talent management providers as well as good fit to business context. Our research shows organisations that connect their talent lifecycles with the business see transformational results – both for the company, and for the strategic value of HR as a business partner.”