Coupa Software Inc., a major provider of financial software to enterprises, today said it’s buying analytics specialist Llamasoft Inc. for about $1.5 billion.

Publicly traded Coupa sells a so-called business spend management platform that enterprises such as Salesforce.com Inc. rely on to organize and control their expenses. The company says more than $2 trillion in spending has gone through its platform to date, up from $1.3 trillion last September.

Ann Arbor, Michigan-based Llamasoft provides artificial intelligence-infused analytics software that enterprises use to make their supply chains more efficient. Its software creates a virtual model of a company’s supply chain and enables business analysts to perform thought experiments to explore how operations could be improved. For example, analysts can compare different shipping routes to determine the fastest way of getting merchandise to consumers, or run simulations to test how well suppliers would handle a sudden surge in orders.

Llamasoft has a customer base of several hundred customers. Its users include major enterprises such as Boeing Co., Danone S.A., Home Depot Inc. and Nestlé SA, among others.

The acquisition will enable Coupa to boost a strategically important part of its business. Coupa’s business spend management platform is used by its enterprise customers for, among other things, managing payments to suppliers. Llamasoft’s supply chain analytics platform, meanwhile, helps companies manage related other aspects of their relationships with their suppliers such as ensuring delivery deadlines are met and allocating manufacturing capacity.

The acquisition will enable Coupa to expand the existing supply chain analytics in its spend management platform. The company analyzes transactions that go through the platform to give enterprises pointers on how to improve their operations.

“We could tell our customers — and we’re telling them — ‘Hey, our community is having challenges with such-and-such supplier,’” explained Coupa Chief Executive Officer Rob Bernshteyn (pictured) in an interview on SiliconANGLE Media’s theCUBE last year. “’We recommend you consider this supplier in that same category because our community is having great success with them.’”

The acquisition may open new product integration opportunities for Coupa and Llamasoft. Coupa could potentially make insights from its platform, such as information on how well a given supplier performs compares with its peers, available inside Llamasoft’s software to help analysts make better supply chain planning decisions.

Photo: Coupa