Influencer management tool Trufan just acquired social analytics startup SocialRank for an undisclosed amount as social media companies face uncertainty and consolidation
- On Tuesday, influencer management startup Trufan announced it had acquired SocialRank, a social media data analytics tool, for an undisclosed amount.
- New York-based SocialRank had raised $2 million in venture funding since 2012 and was most recently valued at $5.59 million, according to Pitchbook data.
- SocialRank cofounders Alex Taub and Michael Schonfeld will manage the transition into Trufan, and the rest of the 6-person team will stay on to manage SocialRank as a standalone product.
- Schonfeld and Taub have already mapped out their next venture, Upstream, a "new social professional network," according to Taub's Medium post.
- Startups catering to influencers have garnered significant attention from Silicon Valley venture investors, but some feel the industry is over-reliant on tools like Instagram that can drastically affect an influencer's reach and advertising value.
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Consolidation is coming to the influencer economy.
On Tuesday, influencer management tool Trufan announced it acquired SocialRank, a social media data analytics startup, for an undisclosed amount. The news comes just days after Instagram announced it would be removing the ability to see the number of likes - a key metric influencers use to measure engagement and charge for advertisements and promotions.
The change highlighted the precarious nature of an entire industry of largely venture-backed startups catering explicitly to the burgeoning influencer economy. While some investors, like CRV, have taken big bets on social analytics and influencer-specific tools, others have been hesitant to take a chance on an industry they see as fundamentally reliant on outside forces, namely Facebook-owned Instagram and more recently, Chinese video app TikTok.
Prior to Tuesday's announcement, New York-based SocialRank had raised $2 million in venture funding since it was founded in 2012, from a smattering of early-stage investors, including Soma Capital, Boldstart Capital, Advancit Capital, Rainfall Ventures, and Social Starts. Its seed round, completed in July 2015, valued the company at $5.59 million, according to Pitchbook data.
This is the first acquisition for Toronto-based Trufan. The startup gives influencers tools to engage with and monetize large audiences, a key feature of the influencer economy that operates largely behind the scenes.
As influencers garner more and more views, they become more valuable to companies hoping to reach social media-loving Millennial and Gen Z consumers. Once an influencer turns their social media presence into a full-time gig, it becomes more difficult to manage, which is where Trufan comes in. And with SocialRank, Trufan will now be able to provide quantitative data on users' performance and subsequent ad value, putting cold hard numbers behind each sponsored post for advertisers and influencers alike.
SocialRank cofounder and CEO Alex Taub told Business Insider he and cofounder Michael Schonfeld will manage the company's transition into Trufan as advisors, and the rest of its 6-person team will stay on with Trufan to manage SocialRank as a standalone product.
Schonfeld and Taub have already mapped out their next venture, Upstream, a "new social professional network," according to Taub's Medium post.