Arlington-based Higher Logic acquires Montreal’s Vanilla

Tech firms offer community engagement platforms

Published May 4, 2021 by Richard Foster

Arlington-based tech company Higher Logic has acquired Canadian cloud-based community software company Vanilla.

Vanilla was owned by New York-based growth equity investment firm Level Equity. Financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Founded in 2007, Higher Logic offers a community engagement software platform aimed at associations and the corporate B2B market. With the acquisition of Vanilla’s engagement platform, Higher Logic is expanding its reach into the business-to-consumer market, according to a company news release.

The combined company has approximately 400 employees.

“We have always been impressed with Vanilla’s commitment to innovation in engagement and their ability to serve key business use cases in the B2B and B2C space for customers like Oracle, TeamViewer, Acer, Charter Communications and more,” Higher Logic CEO Kevin Boyce said in a statement. “Vanilla’s success in the corporate market complements our success with B2B technology companies like Change Healthcare, Juniper Networks, Imperva, and others. At the same time, our scale, profitability and accelerating growth will allow us to increase our investment in both the association and corporate markets and continue to build industry-leading engagement solutions that connect people, knowledge and ideas. We are excited to welcome the Vanilla team into the Higher Logic family.”

“Higher Logic has a proven track record in building community engagement and facilitating meaningful connections for organizations,” Vanilla CEO Luc Vezina said. “With more interactions happening digitally, community has become mission-critical for almost every organization. We are thrilled to be joining forces with Higher Logic to create the preeminent online community solution.”

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