Adobe recently acquired Rilo, a small AI startup from Mumbai that was less than a year old, in a deal that has attracted attention across the startup ecosystem. It was a small deal considering Rilo was just an early-stage startup in the tech world, founded by two IIT Bombay classmates, Dhruv Jaglan and Georgi Boby. The company had a team of only 6 people but still somehow managed to get on the radar of one of the biggest tech giants in the world.
Rilo was started because the founders saw a gaping hole in the marketing world. People use loads of different software tools these days to do their marketing work, but having to keep track of them all is a nightmare. Rilo tried to make life a little easier for them by using AI agents to do the tasks automatically for users.
Instead of having to learn how to code or connect loads of different apps, users just had to tell the AI what they wanted to do, and the system would then sort out the workflows and perform the different steps on its own.
Rilo grew at a pretty remarkable rate, quickly racking up over 10,000 users in a short space of time. After that, the company started focusing more on marketing teams. Their AI tools were able to help find competitors, search for new customers, manage outreach, check content ideas and get a better handle on campaign performance.
Growing that fast is no mean feat for a young startup like Rilo, but that just goes to show what they’re capable of. They also managed to raise $1 million in funding from Peak XV Partners, DeVC and Day Zero Ventures. Reports suggested that before Adobe acquired them, Rilo had a valuation of around $10 million.
So what made Adobe so interested in Rilo? Marketing is changing fast, and teams have to handle loads of different tasks all at once – research customers, create content, run campaigns and check the results. Most AI tools can help out with one thing, but Rilo was trying to do something much more clever -connect all these different activities into one smooth workflow.
This is right up Adobe’s street because they’re already big players in the marketing and customer experience space, but they know that adding AI-based automation would make their tools much more powerful.
As part of the deal, Rilo will no longer continue as an independent product. Adobe will integrate parts of the company’s technology and bring the 6-member team into Adobe. Existing Rilo users will get all the support they need while the product gets closed down.
Buying up a small startup is probably a heck of a lot quicker than building the same thing from the ground up for a big company like Adobe.
This isn’t the first time Adobe has made a play for an Indian AI company either – earlier, they acquired Bengaluru-based Rephrase.ai, a generative video startup.
As for what happens to Rilo’s tech in the future – well, that’s all a bit up in the air at the moment. It could get built into some of Adobe’s existing products, or just sit quietly behind the scenes, doing its thing.
One thing is for sure though – small AI startups like Rilo are going to be playing a much bigger role in the tech world in the coming years. A company with just 6 people managed to create something of value for a global giant like Adobe.