Spredfast announced today that it is merging with its Austin-based neighbor, Mass Relevance, in a move that heats up the already competitive and fast-growing social relationship software space. (Sprinklr, one of its competitors, announced the acquisition of Dachis group in February.) Putting together two fast-growing companies might seem like a unusual strategy, but it made perfect sense to Spredfast's CEO, Rod Favaron, and Mass Relevance's founder, Sam Decker.
"We've tracked each others' businesses for a number of years... Last fall when it began to look like our platforms were connecting and our product road maps were beginning to merge, it seemed that we could go to digital marketers with an (end-to-end) solution.... If you think of mobile and screens, that they touch, then if you think of all the content across those screens that we track, the synergy of those teams and the shared content across all those screens ... (that seemed to make a lot of sense). We thought that CMOs would take a look and say, 'Wow, these companies can do a lot together.'"
Essentially, what Favaron sees as the merged offering is that the new Spredfast offers "Now Platform Plus a Planned Platform."
As a seasoned CEO, Favaron knows that merging two hyper-growth companies is counterintuitive, and that even in the best of circumstances "putting two companies together is not trivial. We're seeing overwhelming support on Twitter for the strategic genius behind this." Favaron points to a shared culture and the Austin core (only a 12-minute walk between the two headquarters) as a key reason that the merger will work.
Favaron will continue as CEO and preside over a company with 600 customers, 130 developers, operating in 84 countries.
The result? In an era of increased automation in marketing, Spredfast hopes to takle what it calls "unplanned marketing," or helping brands jump into other conversations. As Favaron puts it: "We're creating for marketers a way to take advantage of the reality of now."