Alchemer, a Louisville, Colo.-based survey software platform, acquired Apptentive, a Seattle startup that helps mobile app-makers gather customer feedback.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Alchemer raised capital from private equity firm KKR & Co. in May, in part to find a startup to acquire.
“Our board and investors are excited about the outcome and what it means for our next chapter,” CEO and co-founder Robi Ganguly told Startup.
Apptentive helps clients like Alaska Airlines, Safeway, and CNN power in-app surveys and rating/review prompts. The startup ranked No. 81 on the Startup 200, our list of the top privately-held startups in the Pacific Northwest.
Apptentive’s tech will integrate with Alchemer’s platform, giving its customers a new way to collect feedback from mobile customers, while Apptentive customers will get access to Alchemer’s survey and workflow products.
Alchemer, founded in 2006 and formerly called SurveyGizmo, gives businesses tools to aggregate and analyze customer and employee feedback. It has 13,000 customers, including giants such as Verizon and FedEx.
Ganguly said Apptentive was “sought after” by acquirers amid consolidation in the customer experience and “voice of the customer” software sector. He described the company’s most recent quarter as “exceptional.”
“Feedback and [customer experience] has become more important with the macroeconomic environment looking as it does today,” he said. “The era of growth at all costs is over — today companies need to tend to their customers and keep them happy.”
Ganguly will join Alchemer’s exec team, initially as general manager of its mobile business. A majority of Apptentive employees will join Alchemer.
Ganguly founded Apptentive in 2011 with Sky Kelsey, Mike Saffitz, and Andrew Wooster, who all left the company over the years but remained as advisors. The company graduated from Techstars Seattle in 2012.
“Our belief then was that the ubiquity of the phone meant that the best listening vehicle in the world was the one that was with you all the time,” Ganguly wrote in a blog post announcing the acquisition. “We believed that every company and every customer could be connected in new and important ways, because of the smartphone.”
Apptentive raised $17 million from investors including Grayhawk Capital; Origin Ventures; Momentive (formerly SurveyMonkey); Founders’ Co-op; Golden Ventures; Social Leverage; Cercano Management (formerly Vulcan Capital); and Blossom Street Ventures. It also raised capital from more than a dozen Seattle angel investors.