TrendKite, a fast-growing Austin company that helps businesses analyze and expand the reach of PR campaigns, has made two acquisitions to expand into social media analytics and influence.
It announced Friday that it is acquiring Austin-based Union Metrics and Atlanta-based Insightpool.
Union Metrics was founded in 2009 by Hayes Davis and Jenn Deering Davis. Initially the founders created a Twitter report product called TweetReach. They moved to San Francisco in 2010 and began growing a social analytics company before returning to Austin.
Insightpool, meanwhile, has developed a social influencer database that helps brands expand their social reach. It was founded in Atlanta in 2012 by Adam Blaschke, Adam Lewites and Adam Wexler, according to Crunchbase. The startup was one of the first to join the Atlanta Tech Village, one of the nation's top tech incubators, in 2013.
The company has has a database of more than 750 million social influencers and helps brands expand their social reach. Clients Insightpool serves include the Coca-Cola Company, UPS, NBCUniversal, DocuSign, TOMS and Airwatch by VMware.
“People get their news from many different sources in today’s digital and fragmented media world. As a result, marketing and communications professionals must add social influencers to their target list of traditional journalists,” Devon Wijesinghe, CEO of Insightpool, said in a statement. “TrendKite is the ideal organization for Insightpool to combine with to execute our shared vision for the future of earned media and PR. Together we create unparalleled distribution, targeting and measurement to truly create the new era of earned media.”
Both of the acquired companies will stay in their respective offices in Austin and Atlanta.
In a related move, TrendKite reported $16.7 million in equity funding and other securities that are tied to the acquisition and stock purchase.
In January, TrendKite announced a $11 million round from New York City-based Harmony Partners. TrendKite’s total funding is around $46 million.
TrendKite’s software uses AI to analyze millions of news articles each day and generate a variety of analytics to help companies learn more about the effectiveness of their PR campaigns, the effect of earned media and compare competitors’ coverage.
Editor's note: This story has been updated to reflect the nature of the SEC filing for $16.7M in funding.
