Whether you call it REVBEAM, nearcosystem-led growth, or even Crossveal (or any “celebrity couple’s name” you can think of), the Crossbeam x Reveal merger is one of the biggest B2B news stories of 2024.

And everything started with a shared vision by two founders: to change how all companies grow through modern partner ecosystems. 

Those two founders, Bob Moore and Simon Bouchez, had never met. In fact, they lived an ocean apart. Simon, based in Paris, called his company Reveal and promoted a philosophy called “Nearbound.” Bob, based in Philadelphia, called his company Crossbeam and promoted a philosophy called “Ecosystem-Led Growth.” 

Both were building powerful data networks, creating products that resonated strongly with an emerging market, building companies with trust at the center, and working to supercharge go-to-market teams with partner data and relationships.

So, how and why did these fierce competitors decide to unify their networks, teams, products, and visions? 

And, more importantly, what can we expect from them next?

During ELG Con London, Bob (co-founder and CEO) and Simon (now co-founder and COO) shared the story behind the merger, what the future looks like for Crossbeam, and how they think the unified network of 29K+ companies will impact users. 

In case you missed it, here are the highlights of the session (and we'll have on-demand video available soon!): 

The story behind the merger

Reveal (founded in 2019) and Crossbeam (founded in 2018) grew independently, each carving out a significant presence in the market. 

Despite their competition, Bob and Simon recognized their shared vision and complementary strengths.

Their paths first crossed meaningfully in August 2022 at the Catalyst event in Miami, where they acknowledged their similarities and potential for collaboration. Although initial talks about merging began later that year, the timing wasn’t right, and both companies continued to operate independently, experiencing significant growth.

By early 2024, the need for a unified network became apparent as customers increasingly demanded integration between Reveal and Crossbeam. Recognizing that their competition was not each other but broader market challenges, they reengaged in merger discussions.

“We were building walls, and not only preventing our own networks from growing, but also preventing all these companies and all of you from extending beyond your own sub-ecosystem or echo chamber.” — Simon Bouchez

In March 2024, they signed a term sheet and entered a due diligence period, culminating in the merger in June.

This union aimed to combine their strengths and better serve their customers by creating a more integrated and efficient platform. As the deal closed, they immediately connected Crossbeam and Reveal to answer all their questions related to the network graph, symbolizing a new era of collaboration and growth.

“The extent to which each of us had been doing work that was net accretive to the world was greater than we thought. Adopting these practices gives us a much stronger starting point to bring value to more companies.” — Bob Moore

Crossbeam’s future

The team is dedicated to developing a unified product experience that allows seamless access to the combined network. This process will take time, and our user community involvement will be integral throughout to ensure a seamless transition for users, avoiding disruptions, and maintaining commitments to current contracts and processes.

“The goal is to create a unified network that combines the power of the two existing networks, providing universal access through a single, cohesive product experience.” — Bob Moore

Building on the robust foundation of Crossbeam’s backend, our team is incorporating Reveal’s user-friendly interface and actionable data features. As a result, our users will gradually notice exciting new updates. Both teams have merged effectively, blending the strengths of both companies to create a more powerful platform.

After only two weeks, both teams (Reveal and Crossbeam) have been deeply integrated to foster collaboration and leverage the strengths of both groups. This integrated approach ensures that Crossbeam operates as a single entity, avoiding the common pitfalls of post-merger integration where companies remain siloed.

“Involving the user community and the customer community in the merger process is going to be extremely important. So, of course, our goal is to have a unified network just to combine the power of the two networks into one and to provide universal access to all of you.” — Simon Bouchez

The merger is not just about combining technologies but also about aligning missions and values to drive ecosystem-led growth (ELG). 

The unified company aims to significantly impact how companies grow by using ecosystem intelligence and AI to enhance GTM strategies. This will involve expanding the use of the platform beyond partnership teams to include sales teams and other go-to-market personas, maximizing the value derived from the combined data and relationships.

From now on, future product decisions will be heavily data driven. This means that user engagement and feedback will be key to determine which features to carry forward and which to discard — this will ensure that the most effective and valued functionalities from both platforms are retained.

The impact of a 29k-company network

“The total number of partnerships on the network is north of 50k. It's obviously larger than the number of companies and grows at this interesting corollary of that. But, of the 29k companies on the network, there are a couple thousand companies that overlap on the two [companies’ networks].” — Bob Moore

Companies signing up for Crossbeam or Reveal can truly benefit from a vast network of 29k companies to boost their sales and business expansion. It will help both Crossbeam and Reveal users discover potential partners in various regions like EMEA and APAC, or in exploring new verticals.

Despite the overlap of thousands of companies between Crossbeam and Reveal, most partnerships are unique to each platform. Thus, combining these networks results in a plethora of new connections and opportunities with minimal redundancy.

“This merger exemplifies the “1+1=3" analogy, emphasizing the increased value that will be provided to both sets of customers.” — Simon Bouchez

A final thought 

Crossbeam’s network includes many large companies and ecosystem leaders with a huge power of attraction, incredible enterprise capabilities, and tightly controlled security processes. 

Reveal has been known for their friendly UI, the ability to innovate and take action on the data, their amazing customer support, and strong partner community. 

In order to help our customers achieve their promised land, the only logical thing to do was to mix the best of both worlds. 

So, whether you have heard of nearbound (coined by Reveal) or ecosystem-led growth (coined by Crossbeam), from now on, the only goal is for our customers to build and leverage the power that partners can have in their GTM strategies. 

“Our teams deserve a lot of credit for just how well and how quickly they have adapted to collaborating with one another. 

We did a lot of work at closing to design an organizational chart and a leadership structure that is extremely representative of the biggest strengths of both companies. So you look across our leadership team, you look across the way their board is structured.

You look across the way that the jobs to be done throughout the company at all levels are structured. And what you see everywhere is these teams that are cross pollinated with Reveal and Crossbeam people. I think this is a testament to how much we really were kindred spirits as companies without knowing it.

The compatibility of those teams and the way in which even the working styles have overlapped has been strong enough that we can already see the writing on the wall around how incredibly powerful this is — in ways that you're going to progressively and continuously see in the coming months and quarters.” — Bob Moore