Brandwatch Buys Top Influencer Analytics Firm PeerIndex

Merging influencer and content analytics for targeted marketing tech offering

NEW YORK and LONDON, December 17, 2014/PR Newswire/ — Brandwatch, the leading social intelligence tech company, today announced its acquisition of PeerIndex, provider of the most transparent influencer mapping technology ever built. The acquisition includes ownership of the world’s largest independent Twitter author database.

PeerIndex is Brandwatch’s first acquisition, a strategic first selected for its complementary technology and talent. PeerIndex’s strong Twitter technologies and world-class engineering team will be absorbed into Brandwatch’s future development, both in place to aggressively advance its product roadmap.

“Content without context only goes so far, and we’re telling the world just that with our acquisition of PeerIndex,” said Giles Palmer, Brandwatch CEO. “Understanding more about the actual people behind the conversations happening online is crucial to marketers, and this is about creating technologies that will allow them to target audience segments at scale with astonishing accuracy. ”

Heavily rooted in Brandwatch’s ambitions of advancing social analytics technology and continuously challenging the industry and competitors, this acquisition will bring:

• Deep targeting & analysis: PeerIndex’s influencer analysis technology, which includes the world’s largest independent Twitter author database, will be integrated within the Brandwatch platform. For marketers, Brandwatch content analysis plus the addition of PeerIndex’s deep audience analysis will allow for smarter decision-making based on author, demographics, and psychographic insights beyond anything else on the market.
• Innovation for customers: This move boosts Brandwatch’s Twitter infrastructure and takes social analytics to the next level. PeerIndex’s 300 million+ author profiles, over four years of Twitter author data, and incomparable influencer analysis technology, will all be directly integrated into Brandwatch, adding invaluable human insight.
• Stealth product: PeerIndex CEO Azeem Azhar joins the Brandwatch team to lead a stealth product combining the two technologies. This specific mix of two pioneering social analytics technologies presents the opportunity for Brandwatch to build products and features with a focus on highly targeted messaging and content marketing.

The entire PeerIndex team of 10, primarily comprised of highly-skilled and innovative developers, will join Brandwatch immediately for a total of over 300 global employees.

Azhar will also play an important role as a company product evangelist. He brings with him a rich track record of tech innovation as well as his pivotal role in the UK tech and digital community.

“Brandwatch is an amazing company, and we’re delighted to be teaming up with them,” said Azeem Azhar. “Combining their fantastic commercial platform with our technology insight will bring ground-breaking new products to market.”

PeerIndex’s central London office will form part of Brandwatch’s presence in the UK, helping to provide a base from which to forge closer connections with many of its London-based clients.

The acquisition officially closed on December 16th, 2014, for an undisclosed sum of cash and equity. For additional information on the acquisition, read blog posts from Giles Palmer and Azeem Azhar.

About Brandwatch

Brandwatch is one of the world’s leading social intelligence companies. Its social media listening and analytics technology platforms gather millions of online conversations every day and provides users with the tools to analyze them, empowering brands and agencies to make smarter, data-driven business decisions.

Acquiring social influencer analytics firm PeerIndex in December 2014, Brandwatch continues on its aggressive business trajectory following on its 2014 round of venture funding to the tune of $22 million. The company grew over 100% year-on-year in 2013, has won awards for its technology and renowned corporate culture, and regularly wins accolades for its impressive growth. The Brandwatch platform is used by over 1000 brands and agencies, including Whole Foods, Whirlpool, Pepsico, British Airways, Papa John’s, and Dell.

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