Cision acquires public relations platform TrendKite for $225 million

Cision announced on Wednesday it has acquired TrendKite for $225 million. TrendKite, a digital PR platform that uses artificial intelligence and analytics to monitor and measure communication efforts, will be offered as a stand-alone app for now, but will become part of the Cision Communications Cloud product in the long term.

Why you should care

Marketers using Cision for their communications and public relations efforts will now have access to TrendKite’s platform to track marketing communication campaigns and determine their impact on things like brand reputation and website traffic.

According to the announcement, TrendKite will continue as an application in the short term, but will get integrated into the Cision Communications Cloud in the long term. Once Trendkite’s technology is integrated into the Cision Communications Cloud, marcom teams will have an added level of targeting, measurement and analysis capabilities for earned media campaigns.

“Recent research conducted by Cision with PR Week found that 77 percent of CMOs and CCOs believe they can improve comms measurement and business objective attribution relative to the status quo. Combining Cision and TrendKite will address this important objective for industry professionals worldwide,” said Cision CEO Kevin Akeroyd in the announcement.

TrendKite also includes a social influencer management capability to help brands connect with relevant influencers — a tool that will complement Cision’s Influencer Graph feature.

“Coupled with the Cision Influencer Graph, which understands the connections between an influencer, the content they create, and the audiences they reach, Cision will offer more insights for brands to effectively reach their target audience through earned media outreach,” says Cision about TrendKite’s social influencer management feature.

More on the acquisition

• TrendKite was founded in 2013 by Matt Allison and A.J. Bruno and is based in Austin, Texas. The company’s current CEO Erik Huddleston will become president of Cision following the acquisition.
• This marks Cision’s second acquisition since the new year, and eighth acquisition in the last two years. On January 3, Cision announced it had acquired the social media listening platform Falcon.io.
• Cision reports it has grown into a $2.4 billion SaaS provider under Akeryod’s leadership. Its headquarters is located in Chicago, Illinois, with offices in 22 countries around the world.