Austin-based Spredfast, which makes software for managing social media, is merging with San Francisco-based Lithium Technologies. Terms of the deal weren't disclosed.
Lithium, which has a software platform for digital customer engagement, was founded in 2001. It was acquired by Austin-based Vista Equity Partners in 2017.
The new, combined company will be headquartered in San Francisco. But it's largest office will be in Austin. Lithium Technologies CEO Pete Hess will lead the combined companies. Spredfast Chairman and CEO Rod Favaron will be part of a transition team, but the companies didn't say whether he'd have an ongoing role after that.
"We can't wait to come together with the Lithium team to create the industry's most innovative and robust suite on the market," Favaron said in a news release. "No other company will offer the unparalleled industry and technology expertise to reimagine how businesses think about customer engagement."
Spredfast was founded in 2008 as Social Agency Inc. In 2014, it merged with Austin's Mass Relevance. In 2015, it acquired Madison, Wisc.-based Shoutlet -- it later laid off 47 employees there.
Investors and company leaders say the merger with Lithium creates a new company with much more reach -- including about 500 million consumer touch points each day. Together, the companies will have a single platform to tie in all of a company's brand channels and social media accounts and provide analytics across the board.
"By merging, we’ll be the only platform in the industry that can manage all of a brand’s digital customer engagement," Favaron wrote in a blog post.
In total, Spredfast raised $138.1 million, according to Crunchbase. That includes a $50 million infusion of equity funding in June last year from Riverwood Capital, a Silicon Valley private equity firm. Other Spredfast investors include Austin Ventures, Interwest Partners (Bay Area), OpenView Venture Partners (Boston) and Lead Edge Capital (New York).
"We see an incredible opportunity to unify consumer engagement in the highly fractured marketing and care industries, bringing together the power of two best-of-breed offerings into a game-changing platform for growth," Alan Cline, principal at Vista Equity Partners, said in a news release.
