India’s Rilo Joins Adobe in AI Marketing Automation Deal

New Delhi: Adobe has acquired Rilo, an India based marketing intelligence startup, in a deal involving technology licensing and a team acquisition. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

This marks Adobe’s second known acquisition of an Indian company, following its 2023 purchase of AI video platform Rephrase.ai.

Rilo was founded in September 2025 by IIT Bombay batchmates Dhruv Jaglan and Georgi Boby. The startup built an AI platform that let marketing and go to market teams describe complex workflows in plain English, which AI agents would then build and execute automatically across various tools. Its main use cases included competitor intelligence, content repurposing and distribution, prospecting, LinkedIn outreach, and sales call analysis. The platform had grown to around 10,000 users within months of launching, and was seen as an early competitor to tools like Claude Cowork and ChatGPT Work.

Rilo had raised $1 million in seed funding from Peak XV Partners, DeVC, and Day Zero Ventures, at a $10 million valuation.

As part of the acquisition, Adobe will bring on Rilo’s six member team and integrate some of its intellectual property. Rilo’s investors will get an exit from the deal. However, Rilo’s own platform will shut down after the acquisition and will no longer be available to existing customers.

Rahul Gupta, Managing Partner at Day Zero Ventures, an investor in Rilo, said, “We’re very excited that Rilo has been acquired by Adobe in such a short span of time. 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.”

The deal comes as Adobe deepens its push into agentic marketing and AI powered automation. It follows Adobe’s larger $1.9 billion acquisition of SEO platform Semrush in 2025. The move also reflects a broader industry trend, as companies increasingly build AI tools to automate the creation, deployment, and tracking of marketing campaigns, pull action items from meetings and calls, and boost brand visibility on AI platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude.

Rivals are moving in a similar direction. Canva has also expanded its marketing automation portfolio through acquisitions, while Amazon, Google, and Meta have been building their own AI powered marketing tools in house.