Lithium Technologies to acquire Klout for $100M

As Klout aligns itself more with business, Lithium takes notice

Have you checked your Klout score lately? “My what?” you ask. Exactly.

After raising $40 million over the last few years, including a $30 million round in 2012, many were left wondering, what does Klout actually do? It measures your social influence. Because…reasons.

These days, Klout has been focusing more heavily on monetization through features like “Perks,” in which companies can reward customers who tweet about them. And it looks like Klout’s efforts have paid off. The company is reportedly being acquired by Lithium Technologies for a “nine figure” price tag, according to Recode.

The deal—the terms of which include a mix of cash and stock—has been signed but is not closed.

Klout’s recent business focus falls right in line with Lithium’s overarching goals as a social customer experience management software provider. Basically, Lithium helps businesses harness the power of social media to interact with their customers and drive sales and conversions, increase brand advocacy, and so on through social marketing, social commerce, social support, and crowdsourcing.

Founded in 2001, Lithium has raised $152 million altogether, including a $50 million round last September led by New Enterprise Associates. The company provides social customer experience services for more than 400 brands, including AT&T, Best Buy, Sephora, Skype, and more. Lithium is gearing up for an IPO, though it’s not clear when that’s going to happen. The $50 million raised last September was a “pre-IPO” mezzanine round. But Lithium also said that a $53 million round raised in January 2012 was also a “pre-IPO” round.

Meanwhile, Klout continues to truck on. The company has said it generated $10 million in revenue in 2013 and relaunched its website earlier this month to put more emphasis on better content sharing and creating original content that will be published “when people are listening.”

Klout’s algorithms measure the impact of a users tweets and shares to generate a Klout score that reflects how much social influence that person has. Businesses are getting in on the action to connect with the best influencers.

Right now, the top influencer is the POTUS himself, Barack Obama, who displaced former title holder Justin Bieber (who probably lost points when he turned into Prince Joffrey at some point during puberty). Other top 10 influencers of 2012 include LeBron James, Lady Gaga, Kobe Bryant, Mitt Romney, Tiger Woods, and Kanya West, among others.