Socialbakers acquired by customer engagement company Astute

Astute, a customer engagement platform headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, is announcing that it has acquired social media marketing company Socialbakers.

The financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Socialbakers CEO Yuval Ben-Itzhak will become president of Socialbakers for the combined company, and he told me via email that the entire Socialbakers team will be joining as well, resulting in a combined organization with more than 600 employees and $100 million in annual recurring revenue.

Socialbakers was one of the last independent players from the first wave of social analytics. Founded in 2008 and based in Prague, the company raised a total of $34 million in funding, according to Crunchbase, from investors including Earlybird Venture Capital and Index Ventures. And it's used by more than 2,5000 brands globally.

Astute, meanwhile, has been around for 25 years, and focuses on unifying customer data. Ben-Itzhak said that by acquiring Socialbakers, Astute will be able to add social media-focused features like audience insights, content planning, influencer marketing and ad analytics.

Socialbakers and Astute are already sharing dozens of mutual brand customers in the enterprise segment," he said. This is, in fact, how the acquisition talks came about. The platform integration process has already started and is expected to continue through Q4."

In a statement, Astute CEO Mark Zablan also emphasized the comprehensiveness of the resulting platform.

The lines between customer care, customer experience, and marketing have become increasingly blurred, presenting real challenges for companies," Zablan said. Combining the market-leading social media marketing capabilities of Socialbakers with Astute's engagement suite not only helps our customers tackle this challenge more effectively, but also marks a major milestone along Astute's journey towards becoming the end-to-end customer engagement platform that the Chief Customer Officer needs to succeed."

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