Well known former radio executive Ivan Braiker has sold his Internet company Hipcricket to Augme. The $44.5 Million deal is $6 million in cash and $38.5 million in Augme common stock. The deal also includes a 12-month earn-out payment which could be an additional $27.5 million. Augme will bring Braiker in as the president and board member and Hipcricket COO Eric Harber will also move over with the same title. In fact all Hipcricket employees are expected to make the move to Augme. The name of the company will be Hipcricket and Augme company although that may change in the future.
Braiker told Radio Ink this deal puts the new company "in the lead position in mobile marketing in the United States." He added "the two companies compliment each other, there isn't a lot of overlap." Hipcricket executed its 100,000th campaign this spring, with the pace of activity accelerating dramatically since the company was founded in 2004. Hipcricket has enjoyed double-digit percentage growth in the number of campaigns processed each month, with 10 percent monthly growth on average during the first half of 2011. Clients include Macy?s, MillerCoors, Nestle, KFC, and Clear Channel. The company has also created the first comprehensive permission-based mobile ad network that taps into the buying power of the mass market with industry-leading capabilities to target customers via location and highly-specific demographic information across SMS, display, rich media and video.
Augme CEO Paul Arena said ?The agreement to acquire the assets of Hipcricket follows our previously announced acquisition of JAGTAG, which was completed on July 22, 2011. We expect the complementary resources of Augme, JAGTAG and Hipcricket, when combined, will allow Augme to provide the most powerful best-of-breed mobile marketing solutions to global brand name leaders, backed by strong intellectual property portfolios, including patented technology and software-as-a-service, ?SaaS? technology platforms.? The deal is expected to close at the end of August.
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