Salesforce.com has finally confirmed that it has acquired social media marketing company Buddy Media for nearly $700 million in cash and shares ($689 million to be exact). That’s almost exactly how much Salesforce.com generated in sales in the first quarter of this year as a whole ($695 million).
Earlier reports about the purchase, published at the end of last month by AllThingsD, had pegged the price at more than $800 million (Peter Kafka explains where the discrepancy likely comes from in a new post today).
Update: Kafka also points out the Salesforce.com SEC filing that surfaced this morning lists the total consideration for Buddy Media at $745 million.
Founded in 2007, Buddy Media helps companies like HP, Mattel and Ford and 1,000 other companies maintain a presence on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+, as well as sites like YouTube and Google (search).
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The acquisition of the company is line with Salesforce.com’s recent moves into the realm of social (see Drew’s recent post about that) and its $326 million purchase of social media monitoring company Radian6 last year in particular. Other social Salesforce.com software products include Chatter, Rypple, Stypi and Jigsaw.
The company says it will acquire Buddy Media for approximately $467 million in cash and $184 million in common stock, and $38 million in vested Salesforce.com options and restricted stock units.
Salesforce.com says it expects to close the transaction in the fourth quarter of 2012 (or the end of its fiscal second quarter), and expects to increase revenues by roughly $20 million to $25 million in fiscal year 2013 as a result of the deal.
Buddy Media had raised roughly $90 million in venture capital.
Early investors include early Facebook backer Peter Thiel and Zynga founder Mark Pincus, as wel as angel investors like Ron Conway and Roger Ehrenberg.
Said chairman and CEO Marc Benioff in a canned statement:
“Salesforce.com now has the number one players in social listening and marketing – Radian6 and Buddy Media.
With CMOs surpassing CIOs in spend on technology within the next five years, our Marketing Cloud leadership will allow us to capitalize on this massive opportunity.”
On an interesting sidenote: the ‘exclusive financial advisor’ to Buddy Media was CODE Advisors, a J.P. Morgan-backed financial services firm co-founded in 2010 by former CBS Interactive CEO Quincy Smith and music industry vet Fred Davis.
The news comes right on the heels of Oracle’s acquisition of Buddy Media rival Vitrue. Independent competitors include Shoutlet, Syncapse, Wildfire and others.
You can find the full press release here. Also, make sure you read the blog post of Buddy Media CEO’s Michael Lazerow: New Beginnings.
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