AB Tasty, the fast-growing global experience optimization company, announced today that it has acquired Epoq, an AI-driven recommendation and smart search solution.
The acquisition accelerates both companies’ shared vision of empowering digital teams to deliver relevant and engaging shopping experiences along the consumer journey with a best-in-class experience optimization platform.
“The Epoq team is the perfect addition to AB Tasty, bringing expertise, insights and sophisticated products. We are excited to unlock more value for our customers, who will now have an unparalleled recommendation and search capabilities at their fingertips,” said Alix de Sagazan, AB Tasty CEO and co-founder.
Since 2003, the Ettlingen, Germany-based Epoq has created customized e-commerce solutions for every part of the customer journey from product research, selection, and buying intent to customer loyalty. Their decades-long expertise comes at an advantageous time in the context of digital acceleration and soaring demands for unique experiences.
“Joining forces with AB Tasty makes us more formidable players in the market,” said Thorsten Mühling, Epoq CEO and co-founder. “This is a great opportunity for Epoq to add more value along the consumer journey — not just in Germany, but on a global scale.”
Epoq’s AI-powered recommendation engine enables brands to showcase the most relevant products or content by analyzing shoppers’ click-and-buy behavior via a robust library of algorithms. With search, businesses can provide consumers with a targeted buying journey, ensuring they find a direct way to the product.
In today’s tech stack, when recommendation and search engines are developed separately, they aren’t able to communicate with each other. Epoq connects the two solutions in a knowledge center, where each action feeds the other to enhance the results.
Epoq complements AB Tasty’s client-side and server-side experimentation and personalization solutions. AB Tasty enables marketing, product and tech teams to easily validate their ideas and optimize conversions on digital channels. Together, they create a 1:1 personalized experience for consumers — and help brands deliver “wow” user experiences.
“The pandemic triggered an e-commerce boom, with half of the transactions coming from search requests and a third of that from recommendations,” said Remi Aubert, AB Tasty CEO and co-founder. “People using e-commerce site search expect the same level of precision as they do from Google. With Epoq, we are easing our clients’ lives, accelerating the delivery of tailored experiences and driving profitability.”
This acquisition makes AB Tasty the first company in its class to offer a consolidated approach in experience optimization with experimentation, personalization, recommendation and intelligent search.
The deal will also strengthen AB Tasty’s customer base and product portfolio. With Epoq joining AB Tasty’s global ecosystem, the company now boasts over 1,100 clients and 320 employees, with 13 offices in key markets such as France, Germany, UK, US and APAC.
The announcement comes after AB Tasty’s $40 million Series C fundraising. In the past two years, AB Tasty has grown 200% internationally and has added brands such as Kering, McDonald’s and Ulta Beauty to its roster, joining L’Oreal, Disneyland Paris and LVMH. Meanwhile, server-side solution Flagship was named a leader in “The Forrester New Wave™: Feature Management And Experimentation.”
