In an interview with SiliconANGLE last year, Marketo Inc. Chief Executive Officer Steve Lucas predicted that the marketing technology industry would see significant consolidation through 2019. It now looks Lucas and his company may find themselves at the center of this consolidation.

Reuters reported today that Adobe Systems Inc. is in talks to acquire Marketo. The news agency attributed the information to the usual “people familiar with the matter.”

The report comes two years after Marketo was taken private by Vista Equity Partners Management, a private equity firm active in the technology industry, for $1.8 billion.

Reuters’ tipsters said that Adobe is expected to pay “significantly” more than what Vista did in event that they strike a deal. However, they cautioned that the acquisition talks could still fall apart.

It’s not hard to see why Adobe might be interested in Marketo. Both companies are major player in the marketing automation segment, where they face competition from deeply entrenched rivals such as Salesforce.com Inc. and Oracle Corp. Should the acquisition go through, it would put Adobe in a stronger competitive position.

Marketo provides an account-based marketing platform for managing promotional campaigns that target businesses. The company boasts more than 6,000 customers including Microsoft Corp., Hyundai Motor Co., Panasonic Corp. and other major brands.

Today’s Reuters report cited an estimate from credit ratings agency Moody’s Investors Service Inc. that showed Marketo had generated about $321 million in revenue last year. Under Vista’s ownership, Marketo has actively worked to open new sales opportunities. One of the latest milestones in the effort was the April announcement of a collaboration with Google LLC to develop a marketing tool powered by artificial intelligence.

AI is also a core priority for Adobe, which added new machine learning features to its cloud-based marketing suite only this week. The commonality between their long-term product visions may be one of the reasons behind the company’s reported interest in buying Marketo.

Another, even bigger motivation, would be to boost the growth of its marketing division. Adobe saw the unit’s revenue increase 18 percent, to $586 million, in the second quarter, while total revenue rose 24 percent to $2.2 billion.  

Adobe is no stranger to using acquisitions to drive growth, nor to doing business with private equity firms for that matter. In May, it bought e-commerce software provider Magneto Inc. from asset manager Permira for $1.68 billion.

Still, not everyone is convinced that Adobe is all that interested. Ray Wang, founder and principal analyst at Constellation Research Inc., told SiliconANGLE that he thinks Vista floated the rumor to get SAP to buy Marketo instead.

Here’s that interview with Lucas from last year:

With reporting from Mike Wheatley

Image: Adobe