Spredfast, the leading provider of social relationship platforms for large brands and agencies, and Mass Relevance, the technology leader in enabling social marketing experiences for brands and media companies, announced today that they are merging.

The new entity will offer marketers the only seamless solution to manage, monitor and integrate social content across any digital screen.

Now marketers can access every piece of social data submitted, in real-time. With this data, they can uncover conversations that matter to their brand and build shared experiences that enable them to interact with their audience, both one-to-one or one-to-many. In turn, their audience can impact, shape and advance the brand.

“Keeping up with the speed of social is a lofty challenge for marketers and media today. Consumers continue to raise the bar for how they want to engage with brands. Amidst a sea of social chatter, brands must find the right moments to interact with their audience, and move faster than ever to deliver their stories,” said Rod Favaron, CEO of Spredfast. “The combination of Spredfast and Mass Relevance give brands an unparalleled ability to stay on top of market trends, and be smarter about how to engage customers in social experiences that build lasting relationships.”

Social media has forever changed the way marketers interact with consumers. With the speed and scale of innovation in social technology, consumer attention has become fragmented and fleeting. Brands and media companies are challenged to understand their audiences, and maintain relevancy and engagement. To combat this obstacle, it has become crucial for companies to weave social into the DNA of their marketing and advertising.

“We built Mass Relevance to connect relevant conversations from social networks and fuse them into a customer’s brand story. Three years later, we are honored to align with our neighbors, another Austin-based company, to complete the circle of bringing audience participation into every aspect of marketing,” said Sam Decker, CEO and Co-Founder of Mass Relevance. “The combination of Spredfast and Mass Relevance opens up new possibilities for our customers to do more with social content in real-time.”

In just over three years, both companies have led their respective industries with tremendous growth. Combined, they are the only software provider to partner with over 600 customers, including all five major broadcast networks and fifty percent of Interbrand’s 2013 World’s Best Brands, secure elevated access to both Twitter and Facebook data through strategic partnerships, manage over one billion brand social connections across 84 countries, drive more than 15 billion monthly impressions, and have the power to process 650 million pieces of social content per day in multiple languages.

“Spredfast and Mass Relevance together provide an unmatched, comprehensive product solution necessary for any marketer to succeed in today’s always on and ever-changing social environment,” said Mike Dodd, Partner at Austin Ventures and founding investor in both companies.” These two companies and their highly effective leadership teams have been a critical part of the Austin technology landscape and their continued growth as one entity will be a defining factor in this community.”

The Spredfast platform allows marketers to plan, publish and manage daily brand engagement with consumers across all major social networks. The Mass Relevance platform allows companies to create and publish unique social experiences across any digital screen, from owned properties to display ads and broadcast television. The new, integrated suite of products will deliver the unique capabilities brands, media companies, and agencies need to market at the speed of life.

“I have not seen any two companies move the social marketing industry further or faster than Mass Relevance and Spredfast,” said Michael Scafaldi, Director of Digital Marketing Operations at PepsiCo. “Both companies have incredible leadership and equally impressive teams and together, they are going to be unstoppable.”

The combined company will be headquartered in Austin, Texas and it will operate under the name Spredfast. The executive management team will continue to be led by current Spredfast Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Rod Favaron. Sam Decker, CEO and Co-Founder of Mass Relevance, will join the Board of Directors and serve as Executive Advisor to the new company. Spredfast will serve over 600 brands and media companies, with 350 employees and offices in Austin, San Francisco, Chicago, New York, London and Sydney.

About Spredfast

Based in Austin, Texas, Spredfast provides a social relationship platform that empowers enterprise brands to build lasting relationships by creating great social experiences. Spredfast customers manage more than one billion consumer connections and generate more than 15 billion impressions per month – enabling more people, in more places, to engage in more conversations from a single software platform on supported social networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, YouTube, and popular blogging platforms. Some of the enterprise and agency adopters on board with Spredfast include AT&T, Warner Brothers, Whole Foods Market, AARP, AGAIN Interactive, HomeAway, and Ogilvy. For more information, visit www.spredfast.com.

About Mass Relevance

Headquartered in Austin, Texas, Mass Relevance is a social acceleration platform that gives brands, media and agencies the power to transform their marketing. The Mass Relevance platform sifts through millions of pieces of social content per minute to identify what matters to clients. Over 350 major brands, sports teams, publishers and broadcasters have partnered with Mass Relevance to create actionable, engaging and visually stunning experiences on every digital screen. In the past three years, Mass Relevance has delivered more than 35 billion pieces of social content to multiple digital surfaces for world-class brands such as Pepsi, Campbell’s, GE, Target, Walgreens and Microsoft. Mass Relevance has also supported iconic events like the Super Bowl and Academy Awards, launches such as The Avengers and Madonna MDNA, and television phenoms American Idol, X-Factor and The Voice. For more information, please visit www.massrelevance.com

 

In 2009, when Intronis first engaged OpenView, it was growing steadily and looking for a better way to qualify key prospects and convert them into long-term customers. However, the company was predominantly focused on the leads it was generating from inbound sources, and had not yet established a formal business development or outbound lead generation function. Working in partnership with OpenView, which had led its Series A round in 2007, the company was able to make great strides toward building its BDR team. OpenView helped Intronis:

• Map out and commit to a set of key goals and metrics, define minimum lead screening and qualification criteria, and prioritize target segments.
• Develop BDR training materials, create automated reports and dashboards, and prepare a campaign prioritization scheme.
• Recruit key members of its BDR team, including its first lead qualification specialist.
• Identify inefficiencies in its business development efforts and improve overall productivity.

“We work with our portfolio companies to solve the challenges they are facing and add significant operational value where their businesses need it most,” said OpenView’s Director of Growth Strategy, Devon McDonald. “Intronis had the growth potential, it just needed a better system for fueling that growth. That’s where we were able to step in and help.”

Today, Intronis’s BDR team is responsible for more than 80 percent of the company’s new revenue.

“Don’t get me wrong, the numbers are nice,” said Intronis’s Vice President of Sales. “But the biggest thing for me is the genuinely collaborative partnership that we’ve developed with OpenView. Devon has really become a trusted partner and advisor within our company. If we’re planning to implement changes or adjust our strategy, I always run it by her. That just speaks to the level confidence that we have in OpenView.”

To find out more about how OpenView helps its portfolio companies build out their business development functions, download the full case study.

About OpenView Venture Partners

OpenView Venture Partners is an expansion-stage venture capital fund based in Boston that is focused on high-growth software, Internet, and technology-enabled companies. Through its staff of seasoned operating executives, who collectively bring several decades of technology and management experience to the firm, OpenView is able to help portfolio companies quickly optimize their product, go-to-market, and organizational and operational functions. Founded in 2006, the firm invests globally and has approximately $440 million in total capital under management.

Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2014/03/prweb11713384.htm

Acronis, a global data protection company, today announced it has been awarded a 5-Star rating in the CRN2014 Partner Program Guide.

The annual directory is the definitive listing of technology vendors that service solution providers or provide products through the IT channel. The 5-Star Partner Program rating recognizes an elite subset of companies that offer solution providers the best partnering elements in their channel programs.

Acronis’ partner programs offer channel resellers sales, marketing and technical expertise to help them grow their businesses and gain a competitive edge in their markets. In the last 12 months, Acronis has added over 1,000 new partners to its program in the US and now has over 8,000 members in North America. Acronis’ partner programs include theAcronis Global Partner Program, the Acronis Global Technology Alliance Program, and the Acronis Web Affiliates Program. Acronis also offers partners 24/7 maintenance and support, as well as training and certification courses from Acronis Academy, which help partners build their sales and technical expertise on Acronis’ products.

“IT needs are changing dramatically. With the explosion of data sizes and types, the channel is under increased stress to deliver solutions that can protect data across multiple environments,” said David Junca, Acronis’ vice president of sales and channels for the Americas . “To help our channel partners stay relevant, we’re extending our offerings to new partner types, allowing them to maximize opportunities in the cloud and enterprise mobility. We are also strengthening the relationship and services offered to our partners; in the past year alone we’ve formed the Acronis Partner Council, expanded our Acronis Certified Engineer program and improved licensing with simplified pricing and SKUs.”

To determine the 2014 5-Star recipients, The Channel Company’s Research team assessed each vendor’s application based on investments in program offerings, partner profitability, partner training, education and support, marketing programs and resources, sales support and communication.

“Solution providers have a lot of choices when it comes to selecting vendor partners. Identifying the right vendor, with the right technologies, and the right approach can make all the difference,” said Robert Faletra, CEO, The Channel Company. “Our annual Partner Program Guide and 5-Star rating recognizes the very best channel programs available in the market today to help solution providers determine which vendor delivers the best partner elements for their individual business goals.”

The 2014 Partner Program Guide will be featured on CRN.com and the 5-Star Partners listing will be highlighted in the April issue of CRN.

About Acronis

Acronis is a global provider of leading backup, disaster recovery, and secure file sharing and file access solutions. Founded in 2002 Acronis has established itself as a fast-growing international company with more than 700 employees in 18 countries and partners in almost every country in the world. Acronis provides complete, efficient and reliable backup solutions for desktop, server, virtual and cloud environments as well as leading file sharing and sync solutions for mobile devices.

Acronis knows backup. The proof is in the more than 50 advanced backup and recovery technologies developed to date. Over 4.5 million consumers, small and medium businesses and service providers employ Acronis products to protect their critical data.

The company’s flagship product Acronis Backup & Recovery delivers sophisticated technology solutions packaged in an easy-to-use way that allows smaller companies to address their new enterprise-level requirements. Enterprises also use Acronis solutions to address their point disaster recovery, migration and end-point backup needs.

For additional information, please visit www.acronis.com. Follow Acronis on Twitter: http://twitter.com/acronis.

Acronis® and the Acronis logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of Acronis International GmbH in the United States and/or other countries.

Intronis, Inc., provider of world-class cloud backup solutions for the IT channel, today announced it has been recognized as one of this year’s “Top 100 Cloud Computing Vendors” and “Top 20 Coolest Cloud Storage Vendors” by CRN.

The honor marks the second year in a row that Intronis has been featured as a leading cloud innovator and channel-friendly storage vendor for today’s IT channel partners.

The Top 20 Coolest Cloud Storage Vendors slideshow is featured on CRN.com and commends Intronis for its on-demand recovery services and early market support of virtualized machines (VMs). In 2013, Intronis introduced its QuickSpin VM replication and restore technology. Offered as an integrated module within the Intronis software platform, QuickSpin provides turnkey backup and recovery support for VMware. It also enables channel partners to quickly create and update recovery VMs in a cluster, saving businesses time, money and downtime.

“Intronis is committed to making it easier and more profitable for channel partners to proactively address the storage, data protection and recovery needs of today’s SMBs and enterprises by simplifying cloud backup and recovery for all aspects of the network,” says Harry Li, VP of Engineering. “We’re pleased to once again be included among CRN’s Top 100 Cloud Computing Vendors and Top 20 Coolest Cloud Storage Vendors, and thrilled to see our leadership in VMware support and virtualization called out specifically.”

Intronis channel partners have the advantage of branding, marketing and selling complete data protection services as part of their ongoing managed IT service agreement. To help ensure success, Intronis offers channel partners instant access to best practices, online training and support around how to market, sell, deploy and manage Intronis cloud backup solutions. Additionally, Intronis continues to forge strategic alliances with leading RMM and PSA providers, and collaborate with industry leaders such to educate and inspire channel partners to build a more profit-rich business model and customer-minded organization.

To learn more about Intronis online, follow the channel-friendly cloud backup and recovery innovator on Facebook and Twitter, and read the Intronis Cloud Backup and Recovery Blog.

About Intronis

Intronis Cloud Backup and Recovery is a world-class cloud backup solution for the IT channel. Intronis provides the industry’s easiest-to-use secure data solution for offsite and local backup, which generates a monthly recurring revenue stream to add to your business. Intronis offers the best, deepest Exchange, SQL backup on the market, supports virtualized environments with native VMware backup and is integrated with major solutions in the MSP ecosystem. Partners receive expert customer support from our U.S.-based team. The solution has been field tested by thousands of MSPs, and the company has been recognized as a “Best Channel Vendor” by Business Solutions Magazine and one of the “Top 100 Cloud Computing Vendors” and “Top 20 Coolest Cloud Storage Vendors” by CRN two years in a row. Intronis was also named Best Revenue Generator seven times and Best Customer Support three times by members of ASCII. http://www.intronis.com.

Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2014/02/prweb11614719.htm
Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/1756156#ixzz2uXDV5JB8

Central Desktop, the leading cloud-based collaboration platform provider for marketers, announced 2013 highlights, further cementing its position in the marketing collaboration and work management space.

Notable achievements include year-over-year growth of 70% for its flagship SocialBridge® collaboration solution for marketers and agencies, key marketing customer wins and significant product enhancements to address its growing base of enterprise customers. The company attributes its 2013 success to deep knowledge of the marketers’ ecosystem, marketer-specific product innovation, award-winning customer service and sharp focus on self-sustaining growth.

Continued Growth, Renewals and Profitability

Central Desktop won a number of high-profile companies, marketers and creative agencies – including iCrossing, Dillard’s, MIT, Emdeon, Roland, RPA and Kimberly-Clark Corporation – resulting in 70% growth for its SocialBridge collaboration solution. Central Desktop also continued its sharp focus on high growth and profitability while investing in groundbreaking innovation initiatives in 2014.

Deepening Knowledge of the Marketers’ Ecosystem

In 2013, Central Desktop established a marketing and advertising industry board of advisors to bring further expertise to Central Desktop’s strategic planning, product, corporate development and partnering initiatives. The company welcomed the insights and experience of three members to its newly created board: Carol Meyers, chief marketing officer of IT security risk management solutions leader Rapid7 and an accomplished marketing and sales leader who has delivered more than $1.5B in market value for investors through three IPOs; Jerry Rios, a veteran technology and operations executive who serves as senior vice president and chief technology officer of reputable full-service advertising agency GSD&M and Jim Kreller, vice president of sales at Vibes and a seasoned sales and channel development executive focused on social business transformation, leveraging marketer collaboration technologies, partner optimization and ecosystem-building.

Marketer-Centric Product Advances

As a thought leader in the marketers’ ecosystem, Central Desktop leveraged the needs and challenges of marketers and agencies as inspiration for major advancements in its SocialBridge cloud collaboration platform to revolutionize how marketers execute their business. Amongst the many new capabilities and enhancements added in 2013 are:

• a radically simplified user experience;
• account view for streamlined client and campaign management;
• integration with leading file management providers Box, Dropbox and Google Drive, which gives users the ability to upload files directly from locations beyond the desktop and edit files directly from SocialBridge using the native apps installed on their computers;
• a new reporting engine that provides users with the ability to filter, arrange and group data to keep track of projects and share reports with executives who need to be looped into the status of projects; and
• new APIs that make possible more connections with third-party applications critical to a marketing team’s day-to-day operations.

According to Kristy McKnight, vice president of product, “Our products and customers are at the nexus of two of the fastest growing sectors of the market – marketing technology and collaboration. The way marketers work is dramatically changing with their creative assets, campaigns and work originating in the cloud. Our mission is to continue to lead the industry with solutions that address this dynamic shift happening within the marketers’ ecosystem.”

Industry Recognition for Product, Customer Service and Leadership Excellence

Central Desktop was honored with a number of accolades in 2013, including being named to Deloitte’s Technology Fast 500™, a ranking of the 500 fastest growing technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences and clean technology companies in North America. Central Desktop was also named to the 2013 Inc. 500|5000 list of America’s fastest growing private companies, where the company joined the likes of LivingSocial, Edible Arrangements, CDW and Lifelock, among other prominent brands featured on the 2013 list. Central Desktop was also recognized with a Gold Stevie® Award in the “Customer Service Team of the Year” category of the American Business AwardsSM, a Silver Stevie® Award in the “Customer Service Department of the Year” category, and a Silver Stevie® Award in the “New Product or Service of the Year – Software – Collaboration/Social Networking Solution” category. CEO Isaac Garcia earned a spot on the 2013 Socaltech 50 and was named CEO of the Year by the CEO World Awards.

Philanthropy

As part of its community outreach programs, Central Desktop continued to drive its CD Gives program, which helps nonprofits communicate and collaborate. The company donates its collaboration platform to qualified applicants, such as the International Institute of Los Angeles (IILA), which is using SocialBridge to connect anti human-trafficking groups and law enforcement agencies.

According to CEO Isaac Garcia, “Central Desktop had a stellar year in 2013 with strong growth and significant customer expansion within the marketers’ ecosystem. Many creative agencies and marketing teams today are flailing as they adjust to the ‘big shift to digital.’ Our collaboration platform for marketers addresses their needs like no other product on the market today. Every day, marketers are executing their campaigns faster with SocialBridge. Their creative teams are getting more done faster because of SocialBridge. ”

About Central Desktop

Central Desktop helps people work together in ways they never imagined possible. Our SocialBridge online collaboration platform connects people and information in the cloud, making it possible to share files, combine knowledge, inspire ideas, manage projects and more. Central Desktop serves more than half a million users worldwide. Key Central Desktop customers include CBS, MLB.com, Harvard University, the Humane Society of the United States, Javelin Marketing Group, Upshot, Engauge, WD-40 and Workday. Founded in 2005, Central Desktop is a privately-held company with headquarters in Pasadena, California. For more information, visit www.centraldesktop.com.

Signpost, a venture-backed startup that creates marketing automation software for small- and medium-sized businesses, has hung up its shingle and a help wanted sign at a new location in Denver.

The company, which has raised $15 million from Google Ventures and other investors, recently relocated its Denver office to a new, 8,500-square-foot office near downtown and has plans for a major expansion, co-founder and CEO Stuart Wall said.

Late last year, Signpost raised an oversubscribed $10 million Series B roundfrom investors OpenView Venture Partners, Spark Capital, Scout Ventures, and investor Jack Herrick. The money is being used to add staff, including engineers, sales and marketing associates, and customer service specialists.

It’s a big expansion in Signpost’s headcount, which is already near 90, and while the company is headquartered in New York City with an office in Austin, most of the new employees will be based in Denver.

“Relative to all the markets we’re in, we’re most excited about Denver. It’s key to our future,” Wall said. “Denver is really going to be where our growth comes from going forward.”

The company set up a Denver office in 2013 that by the end of the year had 25 to 30 Denver employees. Wall said he expects that number to grow to about 100 by the end of 2014.

Signpost and Wall are outsiders to Colorado and chose Denver from six cities. Wall, a Harvard MBA and former Bain & Company consultant, did his homework before broaching new territory.

“We think there’s a great talent pool…and an amazing lifestyle especially compared to New York,” Wall said, citing a much lower cost of living.

But there is another big factor that could make life easier for Signpost as it grows.

“The employees we’ve seen have also been pretty dedicated relative to New York and San Francisco, where there’s a culture of job hopping between different startups,” Wall said.

He thinks the talent pool, lower cost of living and doing business, and greater sense of employee loyalty will serve Denver well.

“Regardless of Signpost, I think Denver is going to grow as a tech hub because of those factors,” he said.

While Signpost’s new office and hiring are a nice local story, the company’s ambitions are much larger.

“There are a lot of front-office tasks that if you are a small business owner are really important to your business, but also way too complicated to do yourself,” Wall said.

That includes managing profiles across social media sites, collecting customer information, and marketing to existing customers, he said.

“We think those are basically prerequisites for doing business, but pretty hard to do if you’re not an online marketing expert,” Wall said. “We want to make software that makes it really easy for small business owners.”

Signpost’s software is based in the cloud, and it’s not the only marketing automation software out there. Marketo and Oracle Eloqua are among the major players in the field. Wall said he wants to beat competitors on price—it’s $150 per month—and ease of use for small business owners.

“We think a lot of the software out there is pretty high friction,” Wall said. “We think about making it super-intuitive and automated…and making the technology invisible.”

Signpost seems to be attracting more attention. In January, Forbes named it to its list of “America’s most promising companies.” Signpost reported revenue of $3 million last year and claims it has more than 10,000 signups with a 97 percent retention rate.