Apparently Klout is popular. The website that provides social media users with a measure of their “influence” is close to being acquired by a social marketing company for US$100 million, according to published reports. The supposed buyer, Lithium Technologies, helps major brands use social media to grow their businesses. It will acquire Klout for a mixture of cash and stock in a deal worth somewhere in the “low nine figures,”.
Klout, the online popularity contest startup, is poised to be sold to social customer service company Lithium Technologies. The deal is signed but not closed, said sources. And, while the numbers are fuzzy given they account for a mix of cash and Lithium private stock, the acquisition is “in the low nine figures” — that is, at least $100 million. It’s a dead-on fit in terms of topic focus for the two companies, but it’s also a save for San Francisco-based Klout, which had two years ago raised a $30 million Series C round from investors including Kleiner Perkins, Venrock and Institutional Venture Partners, for total funding of more than $40 million. Klout CEO Joe Fernandez has been telling a tale of redemption in recent months, after his company became a bit of a whipping boy for criticism of the vanity of social media.