Here’s what I said in April about data and SMB listings syndication platform SinglePlatform:
The company will be acquired at some point in the next year or two I predict. The question is who will acquire it and can its “integrity” be maintained thereafter.
This morning it was announced that Constant Contact had bought the company for $100 million ($65 million of which is cash). The following is verbatim is what CEO Wiley Cerilli sent out in an email this morning to “friends and family”:
I have some exciting news to share this morning. SinglePlatform has signed an agreement to be acquired by Constant Contact, a leading provider of online engagement marketing tools for small businesses and nonprofits. The deal was announced one minute ago for $100 million. The Executive team and I could not be more excited about this acquisition, and the impact it will have on our ability to help empower millions of local businesses while providing our team members with an amazing career opportunity.
From a high-level, things are going to remain the same for a while.
- The whole team is staying, including the Executive team
- We will keep our name, our service and our roadmap
- We will continue to operate out of our NYC office
- The only reporting change will be that I will now be a Vice President at Constant Contact, reporting to their CEO, Gail Goodman (Ernst & Young Innovator of the Year, Member of MIT’s Innovation Hall of Fame), and I will be member of their Executive team. Not bad for a college dropout.
I was impressed with what SinglePlatform had so far accomplished — it had built a network of some very large online brands and developed relationships with 500K SMBs. It was clear the company was going to be acquired.
Now Constant Contact adds yet another impressive tool to its box of SMB marketing products, which are becoming formidable.
June 13th, 2012 at 2:02 pm
Big congrats to Wiley!
June 13th, 2012 at 5:09 pm
interesting – in the blog you posted in april there was a number 500,000 relationships, but based on press release, only 10,000 paying customers. CC paid 100x revenue. Seems like a lot. Intuit paid 9x revenue for DemandForce which seemed to me, to have a more compelling value proposition to the SMB marketplace.
June 13th, 2012 at 10:02 pm
What does “500,000 relationships” mean exactly I wonder
June 14th, 2012 at 4:18 am
Greg no-one will ever doubt your predictions again!
Have you got any more predictions that we can start placing a bet on?
June 14th, 2012 at 1:03 pm
SinglePlatform collects and posts menus from local businesses (mostly but not only restaurants) for free – this is probably the 500k relationship number.
I know these guys well and they pivoted quickly to a model that resonated with local businesses and online publishers. I also expected an acquisition but not this quickly.
June 14th, 2012 at 1:36 pm
The 500K relationships are obviously mostly free. It’s SMB data syndication. Interestingly however it’s not complete in the sense that you can’t update the NAP portion of the listing. I wonder if they’ll try and correct this now at CC.
June 14th, 2012 at 6:33 pm
Interestingly I have never heard of these guys until today! How did they stay under my radar? Greg your radar is clearly wider than most everyone else. Just look at this list of categories on your blog. This is an interesting acquisition and clearly a good fit for Constant Contact. Looking forward to see what they do with it.
June 18th, 2012 at 4:34 pm
First of all congrats to the SinglePlatform team. I think its fascinating that the Constant Contact team bought them. I didn’t realize that Constant Contact has moved into the local arena in so many ways.
We have local smb’s that utilize Constant Contact competitors. Now I have to review them all. I don’t think our current email vendors are as deeply involved in local promotions, social media, etc. as Constant Contact. An interesting evolution.
June 18th, 2012 at 9:18 pm
VerticalResponse is however.
June 18th, 2012 at 9:40 pm
Thanks, Greg: Didn’t know that. I’m behind the eight ball.
Email marketing is very powerful. Its obviously evolving and getting more powerful and more effective on a local basis.
Now I’ve got to research all this hard. Email marketing with social media and other local signals. That is a terrific path and opportunity!!!!
June 19th, 2012 at 1:28 pm
[...] had previously thought that SinglePlatform, recently acquired by Constant Contact, was a threat to supplant Yext given its momentum. But the company’s system apparently cannot [...]
June 22nd, 2012 at 9:31 pm
Since I hadn’t heard about Single Platform I filled out the form on their website and requested some info. It’s been one week and I have not heard a peep from these guys. Perhaps they are all on a beach somewhere in Mexico. Oh well.
October 30th, 2012 at 7:45 pm
[...] SinglePlatform was acquired by ConstantContact for roughly $100 million in June of this year. It’s not clear to me whether the site will [...]
October 30th, 2012 at 8:13 pm
[...] SinglePlatform was acquired by ConstantContact for roughly $100 million in June. It’s not clear to me whether the site will continue to work to [...]
October 31st, 2012 at 6:03 am
[...] SinglePlatform was acquired by ConstantContact for roughly $100 million in June. It’s not clear to me whether the site will continue to work to [...]