Buddy Media, known for helping companies advertise on Facebook, is being acquired by Salesforce.com, AllThingsD reported on Tuesday.
According to sources, the price tag could be around $800 million. Buddy Media was apparently given a comparable offer from Google, but chose Salesforce instead. Facebook and ad holding company WPP were also rumored to be interested.
New York City-based Buddy Media was founded in 2007 by CEO Michael Lazerow and COO Kass Lazerow. Since then it has raised nearly $90 million, including a $23 million round C in October 2011 from Institutional Venture Partners, Greycroft, and Bay Partners, and a $54 million round D in August 2011 from Insight Venture Partners, along with existing investors. During that fundraising round, Buddy Media was valued at $500 million.
Buddy Media helps maintain advertising, ads and pages on social networks. While it is best known for its work with ad-targeting for Facebook, Buddy Media also has worked with Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+.
Earlier this year, Buddy Media acquired Facebook ads API partner Brighter Option, after purchasing social commerce and analytics startup Spinback in May 2011.
San Francisco-based software company Salesforce has also made some big purchases recently, purchasing online editing platform Stypi for an undisclosed amount in early May.
This is not Saleforce’s first foray into the social media world. In March of 2011, Salesforce bought Canadian social media monitoring platform Radian6 for $326 million.
Salesforce will most likely resell Buddy Media's services, using them to expand the reach of Salesforce clients on social media platforms like Facebook and Google+. Buddy Media will allow Salesforce customers to do more targeted advertising.
For example, Buddy Media put coupons for Pretzel Crisps on Facebook, and was able to double the number of fans on its Facebook page.
Salesforce currently has 100,000 customers, and had net income of over $64 million in 2011, out of over $1.6 billion in revenue.
Representatives at Salesforce and Buddy Media could not be reached for comment.
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Salesforce.com is the worldwide leader in on-demand customer relationship management (CRM) services. More companies trust their vital customer and sales data to salesforce.com than any other on-demand CRM company in the world.
Salesforce.com was founded in 1999 by former Oracle executive Marc Benioff, who pioneered the concept of delivering enterprise applications via a simple Web site. Salesforce.com is constantly building on that legacy by improving and expanding our award-winning suite of on-demand applications, our Force.com platform for extending Salesforce, and our one-of-a-kind AppExchange directory of on-demand applications.
Salesforce.com has received considerable recognition in the industry, including:
• Technology of the Year (InfoWorld, 2004, 2005, 2006)
• Editors' Choice Award (PC Magazine, 2002, 2003, 2004)
• Visionary Award (SDForum, 2004)
• Best of the Web (Forbes, 2003)
• CRM Excellence Award (Customer Inter@ction Solutions, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006)
• Top 100 Innovators Award (BusinessWeek, 2006)
• Innovation Award (AMR Research, 2005)
• CODIE Award for Best CRM (2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006)
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Salesforce Buddy Media is the social enterprise software of choice for eight of the world's top then global advertisers, empowering them to build and maintain relationships with their consumers in a connections-based world. The Buddy Media social marketing suite helps brands build powerful connections globally with its scalable, secure architecture and data-drive consumer insights from initial point of contact through point of purchase. Buddy Media is headquartered in New York City, with additional offices located in Asia, London and San Francisco.
