August was anything but the quiet, relaxed month it’s supposed to be for some media intelligence companies. Signal Media made an acquisition, as did Pattern. Investors, meanwhile, are focused on influencer tools, with multiple platforms closing funding rounds.
Signal Media picks up reputation start-up
Signal Media has acquired Kelp for an undisclosed sum. Kelp, the NYC-based reputation measurement startup, scores news and social media against a set of reputation topics to build a Kelp Score, a measure of reputation. Kelp’s team will join Signal AI’s New York office. It’s expected that Kelp’s scoring will be added to the Signal AI’s External Intelligence Graph, enabling its corporate customers to better understand what drives positive reputation.
Pattern acquires Current
Pattern, the e-commerce acceleration platform, has acquired Current for an undisclosed sum. Current’s influencer marketing technology will be folded into Pattern’s solution. With consumers making purchase decisions on social, we’re likely to see more deals that link influencer tools with e-commerce solutions to support the consumer journey and aid conversion.
Influencer platforms are raising funds
Influencer management tools were the getting all the investor love this month, with a slew of funding announcements from across the sector. Here’s a quick round-up of some of this month’s announcements:
The UK’s Duel closed a £2.5 million seed funding round tosupport company growth and bring on additional staff. The investment was led by the London-based VC firm SuperSeed.
Smartfluence, a NYC-based SaaS influencer marketing platform, raised $USD 2.15 million in seed funding. The round was led by PACA Ventures. The company intends to use the funds to build integrated influencer relationship management tools and e-commerce platform support.
Chennai’s PickMyAd raised an undisclosed sum 
in its second pre-seed funding round led by Suresh Sambandam, CEO of Kissflow. It plans to use the funding to build more creator tools.
Staying in India, Delhi’s Freeskout picked up INR. 4 Crore in a seed round from undisclosed investors. Freeskout will use the finds to develop its platform, including the addition of ROI measurement.
You’ll notice that these are seed funding rounds, all early investment in a rapidly growing space.
Onclusive raises funds
Speaking of fundraising, Stellus Capital Management announced that it’s invested in Onclusive. The funder has announced that it provided senior debt financing and an equity co-investment to support Onclusive and STG’s acquisition of Digimind. Adam Pollock, Managing Director at Stellus, stated, “We are excited to continue supporting STG and Onclusive’s investment thesis to build a global leader in media intelligence. Integrating Digimind’s technology will provide best-in-class social media listening capabilities to Onclusive’s growing customer base.”
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