Adobe buys Indian AI startup Rilo to beef up its marketing automation tools
The six-person team behind Rilo built software that automates marketing tasks like competitor research and sales call analysis. Now they are joining Adobe, and Rilo itself is shutting down.
Key points
- Adobe acquired Rilo, a marketing automation startup based in India, in a deal that includes the six-member team and the company's technology.
- Rilo raised $1 million at a $10 million valuation from investors including PeakXV, DeVC, and Day Zero Ventures, and was founded in 2025.
- The acquisition is Adobe's second from India, following its 2023 purchase of video platform Rephrase.ai.
- Rilo will shut down after the deal closes, meaning its existing customers will lose access to the product.
- Adobe bought SEO company Semrush for $1.9 billion last year, signalling a broader push into marketing intelligence.
Adobe has quietly bought a tiny Indian startup called Rilo, as first reported by TechCrunch, and the deal is worth paying attention to even if the price tag stayed private.
Rilo, founded in 2025 by IIT graduates Georgi Boby and Dhruv Jaglan, built software that helps marketing teams automate repetitive tasks. Think automatically pulling insights from sales calls, reshaping one piece of content for different platforms, or keeping tabs on what competitors are doing, all without manually setting up each step.
What did Rilo actually do?
Rilo let marketing and sales teams build custom automated workflows, sequences of tasks the software carries out on its own, without needing an engineer to wire them together. Teams could use it to analyse sales calls, redistribute content across channels, and monitor rival brands.
The startup also let teams set up workflows that talk to AI assistants, comparable to what tools like Claude and ChatGPT now offer for workplace tasks. That kind of capability is increasingly valuable as brands try to make sure their products show up when customers ask AI chatbots for recommendations.
Rilo raised $1 million from investors including PeakXV, DeVC, and Day Zero Ventures at a $10 million valuation. A source told TechCrunch that investors will receive an exit from the deal.
What does Adobe get out of this?
Adobe gets six engineers and a set of workflow automation tools it can fold into its existing marketing and creative products. The company serves large corporate customers who run complex marketing operations, and automation that removes manual steps has obvious appeal there.
"Their workflow builder product was way ahead of the curve and shall be extremely valuable to a giant like Adobe in enhancing customer experience and productivity," said Rahul Gupta, Managing Partner at Day Zero Ventures.
DeVC's Rahul Mathur added that Rilo could slot into Adobe's customer experience and marketing suite to handle complex workflows and give clients better visibility into what actions they take inside Adobe's platform.
This deal follows Adobe's $1.9 billion acquisition of SEO optimisation company Semrush last year, part of a clear pattern of buying marketing intelligence capabilities rather than building them from scratch.
What happens to Rilo's customers?
Rilo shuts down completely. Anyone currently using the product will lose access. Adobe declined to say whether any features will resurface inside its own products, or when.
For Adobe's existing customers, the long-term implication is more automation built into tools they already use. For Rilo's users, the practical advice is simple: start looking for an alternative now, because the product is going away.
