CRM Software

CRM.com is reporting that Meltwater Group has recently bought CRM software developer JitterJam. Together, the companies can now offer a solution that will give marketing, communications and advertising professionals a great set of tools in order to communicate with customers and look at their behaviors.

Jorn Lyseggen, CEO and founder of Meltwater, said the company researched in detail as many as 20 social media companies when looking for a potential partner during the past nine months. “JitterJam was a company that was standing out pretty early in the process,” he said.

The social media monitoring company purchased JitterJam for a cool $6 million, and its employees are a package deal. JitterJam’s current focus is on combining email and social media with the user’s contact database.

Due to this acquisition, Meltwater will now have the authority to use JitterJam’s core features of contacts, analytics and notifications—and implement them into its Buzz product. The JitterJam platform can still be purchased as a stand-alone solution however, but by the summer, the new integrated product will become available for purchase.

“We have been tremendously impressed with Meltwater’s rapid growth in the social and marketing space,” said Ric Pratte, co-founder, president, and CEO of JitterJam, in a statement. “Meltwater’s expertise, highly impressive customer base, and exceptional sales organization will help us bring the integrated JitterJam platform to a primed worldwide audience. We’re thrilled to be part of Meltwater.”

Lyseggen believes JitterJam is “one of the most comprehensive social CRM systems out there” due to the founders’ background and experience. “They bring that CRM expertise to the social media space,” he maintained. “The talent that the founders represent makes us think they will be a very valuable contribution to our existing organization.”

Lyseggen also said the acquisition represents a “new chapter for Meltwater.”

“We are historically coming from the news monitoring side,” he explained. “Now we are really signaling a serious investment and commitment to social media. We aspire to do the same thing with social media and social CRM as we were able to do in the news monitoring space.”

Lyseggen thinks Meltwater can bring in $100 million in three years solely through entering the social space. Lyseggen added that this acquisition will help the company maintain a much higher position as a social CRM provider.