Contact: Scott Denne Matt Mullen
Lithium Technologies reaches for Klout, a measurer of social media influence, in a deal that aims to boost the marketing capabilities of the acquirer’s social media SaaS suite. The price tag was widely reported as $200m. While we think that’s a bit off, the mostly stock transaction suggests that Lithium’s valuation is growing beyond its nearest public-market peer, Jive Software – a company that’s about double the size of Lithium and trades at a $550m market cap.
In recent years, Lithium has expanded beyond providing tools for online communities into other elements of enterprise-focused social media, including social marketing and customer support via its acquisition in 2012 of Social Dynamx – a service that should get a boost from Klout’s technology, which can be used to determine the priority of each discovered support case.
Behind this deal is, perhaps, a desire for Lithium to get more involved in the marketing data management business. Oracle and Adobe have both made moves in that area, purchasing BlueKai and Demdex, respectively. If Klout’s consumer business remains open and the combined companies can resolve some of the misgivings concerning accuracy around scoring and categorization, then its 500 million profiles should give it a head start in assembling a form of audience-building technology that could be built out from its existing technical assets.
We’ll have a more detailed look at this deal in our next 451 Market Insight.
Lithium Technologies’ acquisitions
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Source: The 451 M&A KnowledgeBase
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