Sprinklr, a $1.8 billion social media marketing startup, is being sued for $50 million for allegedly stealing another startup's technology

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Sprinklr, a $1.8 billion social media marketing startup, is being sued for $50 million for allegedly stealing another startup's technology

sprinklr

Forbes

Sprinklr CEO Ragy Thomas

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  • Sprinklr, a $1.8 billion social media management startup, is being sued by Portland, Oregon-based Opal Labs, which accuses Sprinklr of stealing its intellectual property.
  • The lawsuit alleges that one of Sprinklr's workers illicitly used an Opal employee account to view confidential information about Opal's marketing software.
  • Opal is seeking $50 million in damages from Sprinklr.


Sprinklr, a New York startup whose technology helps corporate customer service representatives monitor social media interactions, is facing a lawsuit over a partnership gone sour.

Opal Labs, a Portland, Oregon-based marketing technology firm, is suing Sprinklr for $50 million, accusing Sprinklr of stealing its intellectual property. The lawsuit was filed on September 7 in the Multnomah County Circuit Court in Oregon, but wasn't widely publicized until this week.

"In an effort to extend its dominance into the marketing collaboration software and related services fields, [Sprinklr] has raided and hopes to crush Opal," the lawsuit reads.

The suit, a copy of which was attained by Business Insider, describes a mutually beneficial partnership between the two companies that took a turn around 2016, when Paul Herman, an employee of one of Opal's clients, allegedly passed along administrative credentials to a Sprinklr employee. The Sprinklr employee used those credentials to log into Opal's systems and view proprietary information about Opal's software, the lawsuit charges.

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Opal contends in the lawsuit that Sprinklr is developing a marketing product similar to its own that it could not have created without snooping on Opal's system.

Herman left a program director role at Nike in February 2017 to join Sprinklr as a full-time employee, according to his LinkedIn profile. Currently, he's Sprinklr's vice president of its product and solutions enablement group.

Sprinklr, which raised $105 million last year at a valuation of $1.8 billion, did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Among the company's customers are Nike and McDonald's.