The Austin-based PR analytics and reporting platform TrendKite announced that they were acquired by Cision, the leading global provider of earned media software and services to public relations and marketing communications professionals, earlier today.
Valued at $225M, the deal comes just months after TrendKite’s acquisitions of InsightPool and Union Metrics and a full year after raising an $11M round from Harmony Partners. In total, TrendKite has raised $46M across various rounds from investors such as Battery Ventures, Silverton Partners, and Mercury Fund.
How much is TrendKite doing in ARR?
Companies like Nike use TrendKite to better understand the impact of their image across geographies and pay north of $10k annually for access to their platform. Founded in 2013, the business has grown to over 1,000 customers in just five years and is currently “well north” of $10M in ARR, according to CEO Erik Huddleston.
TrendKite more than doubled revenue year over year from 2017 to 2018 and has been acquiring customers with a CAC payback period of just 8 months, on a gross profit basis. They have grown their team size to 230 employees across five cities and two continents. Listen to Nathan’s Interview with TrendKite CEO Erik Huddleston
What’s next for TrendKite?
Going forward, Cision is planning on retaining all TrendKite employees, including placing the company’s leaders in “very senior positions in the combined entity.” For the time being, TrendKite will operate as a stand-alone product, but will ultimately be part of Cision’s suite of cloud products.
The acquisition is the latest of Cision’s recent shopping spree of smaller technology companies. In the last 12 months, the Chicago-based software entity acquired both ShareIQ and Falcon.io ApS, with the latter acquisition coming earlier this month.
