© 2014 The Texas Lawbook.
By Natalie Posgate
Staff Writer for The Texas Lawbook
(April 2) – Two Austin-based tech companies agreed Wednesday to merge to become the “strongest and most comprehensive social marketing company.”
The marriage of Spredfast and Mass Relevance will offer marketers the only seamless solution to manage, monitor and integrate social content across any digital screen, a joint statement on Wednesday said.
Marketers will be able to access every piece of social media submitted, in real-time, and as a result be able to uncover conversations that matter to their brand and build shared experiences that enable them to interact with their audience, both one-to-one or one-to-many.
The financial terms of the merger are confidential, as both companies are private.
Vinson & Elkins advised Spredfast. An Austin-based M&A team led the deal, with partner Wes Jones as the lead attorney and associates Becky Diffen and Michael Gibson assisting. Dallas and Houston partners Shane Tucker and Sean Becker and Dallas associate Dario Mendoza handled the employment matters for the deal. Dallas partner Todd Way and Houston associate Robert Jacobson took care of the tax issues.
V&E has represented Spredfast since 2010. Previous matters the firm has handled for Spredfast include the company’s Series A-1, Series B, Series C, Series D and Series D-1 financings.
Austin corporate technology startup attorney Dave Robinett represented Mass Relevance in the merger.
Before Robinett started his own firm in 2010, he was most recently at V&E in the firm’s Austin office. At his own firm, Robinett’s practice focuses on helping founders, management teams and venture capital investors establish, finance, grow and exit start-up and emerging growth technology companies. His clients come from a wide range of industries, including software, hardware, clean energy and technology, videoconferencing, semiconductors, telecommunications, wireless, consumer products, services and medical device/technologies.
Combined, Spredfast and Mass Relevace will become the only software provider to partner with more than 600 customers and the only entity with the power to process 650 million pieces of social content per day in multiple languages.
Spredfast is a social relationship platform provider that allows clients to communicate with their customers over various social media outlets at once such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google +, YouTube and others. Some of Spredfast’s clients include AT&T, Warner Brothers, Whole Foods and Ogilvy.
Mass Relevance is a technology leader in enabling social marketing experiences for brands and media companies. The Mass Relevance platform sifts through millions of pieces of social content per minute to identify what matters to clients. Brands that have partnered with Mass Relevance include Pepsi, Campbell’s, GE, Target, Walgreens and Microsoft.
The combined company will be under the Spredfast name and will remain headquartered in Austin. It will have 350 employees and other offices in San Francisco, Chicago, New York, London and Sydney.
© 2014 The Texas Lawbook. Content of The Texas Lawbook is controlled and protected by specific licensing agreements with our subscribers and under federal copyright laws. Any distribution of this content without the consent of The Texas Lawbook is prohibited.
If you see any inaccuracy in any article in The Texas Lawbook, please contact us. Our goal is content that is 100% true and accurate. Thank you.