Cleo (company)

Cleo

Type	Privately held company
Industry	Managed file transfer, data integration, network management and secure file sharing
Founded	1976
Headquarters	Loves Park, Illinois, United States of America
Key people	Mahesh Rajasekharan (CEO) Sumit Garg (President)
Number of employees	200+
Website	cleo.com

Cleo is an enterprise software company that provides electronic data interchange (EDI), and application-to-application (A2A), business-to-business (B2B), and big data integration services to organizations with managed file transfer needs. The company, formerly known as Cleo Communications, was founded in 1976. Cleo was acquired by investment firm Globe Equity Partners in 2012. Mahesh Rajasekharan is Cleo's CEO, and Sumit Garg serves as Cleo's president.^[1]

Business

Cleo originally began as a division of Phone 1 Inc., a voice data gathering systems manufacturer, and built data concentrators and terminal emulators — multi-bus computers, modems, and terminals to interface with IBM mainframes via bisynchronous communications. The company then began developing mainframe middleware in the 1980s, and with the rise of the PC, moved into B2B data communications and file transfer software.^[2]

Cleo's portfolio features big data, extreme file transfer, data transformation, person-to-person collaboration, and file sharing solutions,^[3] and its product line includes software for secure file transfer, exchange, and collaboration; secure email, text, and voice messaging; and others.^[4] Cleo products use the AS2 specification and other protocols for connectivity and community management.^[5] Cleo VersaLex is the engine behind its software offerings, which include Cleo LexiCom,^[6] Cleo VLTrader,^[7] and Cleo Harmony, which supports the streamlining of data integration.^[8] The company also developed the Cleo Unify and Cleo Trust secure file sharing and email messaging solutions that work independently or in conjunction with Cleo's data integration platform.^[9] In 2015, Cleo introduced the Cleo Jetsonic high-speed data transfer software solution.^[10]

The City of Atlanta adopted Cleo's fax technology, Cleo Streem, in 2006 to accommodate its communication needs,^[11] and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs did the same in 2013 when in need of FIPS 140-2-compliant technology to protect information.^[12] Cleo also serves U.S. transportation logistics company MercuryGate International^[13] as a customer and partners with Hortonworks^[14] for big data integration and Tech Data for software distribution.^[15] Cleo software also powers the architecture for several major supply chain companies, such as JDA Software and SAP.^[16]

In 2009, Cleo was added to the Gartner Magic Quadrant for managed file transfer.^[17]

Expansion

In June 2014, Cleo opened an office in Chicago for members of its support and engineering teams.^[18] The company in 2014 hired Jorge Rodriguez as senior vice president of product development^[19] and John Thielens as vice president of technology.^[20] And in 2015, Cleo hired Dave Brunswick as vice president of solutions for North America.^[21] Cleo also opened its Center of Innovation product development facility in Bengaluru, India, in 2015.^[22]

In 2016, Cleo acquired EXTOL International, a Pottsville, Pa.-based business and EDI integration and data transformation company for an undisclosed amount. The Pottsville office will operate under the Cleo name.^[23]

Certification

Cleo regularly submits its products to Drummond Group's interoperability software testing for AS2,^[24] AS3^[25] and ebMS 2.0.^[26]

Awards

Cleo has been given a Xerox partner of the year award for each of the past five years. The Cleo Streem solution integrates with Xerox multi-function products, providing customers with comprehensive solutions for network fax and interactive messaging needs.^[27]

References