Toronto-based software platform helping brands activate fan communities, Trufan, has acquired New York-based SocialRank, a social media analytics platform that sorts various audience segments on Instagram and Twitter. The purchase price was not disclosed.
“The collaboration between SocialRank and Trufan will be one of the strongest combined offerings in the entire social ecosystem.”
Under the terms of the acquisition, Trufan will continue to operate and offer SocialRank as a standalone product. A full asset transfer of SocialRank’s technology, customer list, brand, and website will take place, while SocialRank’s founders Alex Taub and Michael Schonfeld will join as strategic advisors to Trufan as they proceed with their next venture, Upstream. The acquiring startup said this acquisition will advance its position as a social intelligence platform.
“The value of us having social media is that it complements Trufan so well,” CEO Swish Goswami told BetaKit. “For any client, if they not only want to see their most engaged followers, but they also want a wider lens of their audience and they want to compare their audience to other people’s audiences, that’s what social rank is. There’s no company in the world that can do what SocialRank does.”
The 13-person team at Trufan, led by Goswami and COO Aanikh Kler, have raised over $1.8 million CAD from several NBA players, media executives, and Canadian venture firms. The startup has worked with numerous clients including Western Union, K-Swiss, Supreme Cannabis, and Kay Jewellers. Included in that sum is a newly closed $400,000 USD round of funding led by Round 13 Capital. Goswami told BetaKit the company is focusing the new capital toward sales and marketing, which will involve two new hires and paid advertisements.
“We are passionate about creating the best experiences for brand advocates around the world and helping brands convert consumers from people who just buy to advocates who buy-in,” said Goswami.
SocialRank was founded by Taub and Schonfeld in 2014 and has raised $2.7 million CAD and currently boasts clients such as Samsung US, Netflix, NBA, NFL, Live Nation, and L’Oréal. The company, which has a team of five, has developed several product lines including SocialRank for Teams, SocialRank for Content, and Market Intelligence.
“SocialRank has created a unique product that allows its customers to harness the power of big data in an intuitive and seamless way,” said Kler. “The collaboration between SocialRank and Trufan will be one of the strongest combined offerings in the entire social ecosystem.”
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Whereas Trufan focuses on fan engagement and has a narrow lens on a customer’s audience, SocialRank is the best-in-class product for audience segmentation and has a priority on filtering and comparing audiences. Trufan said the two platforms complement one another and have common use cases, such as product sampling, location-based activations, and sourcing influencers. The purchase will now enable brands to choose from more social analysis options provided by both companies. Trufan said this acquisition will also position the company as a cash-flow positive business from December onwards.
“We’re very excited about SocialRank becoming part of Trufan. At SocialRank we built a special product and business that had a handful of suitors. We ultimately chose to go with Trufan because of the calibre of their team and the future they are building towards,” said SocialRank’s Taub. “No one understands social intelligence, fan engagement, and influencer marketing better than Swish and Aanikh. The SocialRank product will only get better in their hands.”
Trufan will be integrating its platform with social media management platform Hootsuite and is preparing to co-produce a content series around fandom with Best Crosses Studios. The show will be about athletes rewarding and surprising their top fans. The project is being produced with a star athlete who has not yet been disclosed.
There are similar companies in Canada looking to help brands or individuals activate fanbase communities. One example would be FanSaves, a Cornwall, Ont.-based company which recently closed a $100,000 investment.
Images courtesy Trufan
