PLEASANT RIDGE – ePrize continues to grow through acquisition, buying one of its biggest competitors, New York City-based Promotions.Com. Terms were not announced.
Promotions.com’s primary business is sweepstakes, contests, instant-win games and Facebook and Twitter promotions, ePrize said in a statement. ePrize was launched as an online promotions and loyalty rewards management firm in 1999 by Josh Linkner, who turned over day-to-day management to Matt Wise, who is now CEO.
Promotions.com had been a unit of the financial news and services site TheStreet.com, which sold it to a Promotions.com executive in December 2009 for $3.1 million, according to a statement at the time from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
What made the deal possible was ePrize’s getting “capital flexibility” after the Connecticut-based private equity firm Catterton Partners Corp. took a majority stake in ePrize for what’s thought to be $100 million in August. The deal adds 14 Promotions.com employees to ePrize, bringing the agency’s headcount to about 440. Promotion.com’s President Kyle Peterson will join ePrize.
Wise said revenue for ePrize was $53.8 million in 2011 and increased to $65 million last year.
Promotions.com is the latest in a batch of acquisitions in the past two years for ePrize. Other deals include:
In January, ePrize said it acquired Mozes Inc., a marketing company in Palo Alto, Calif., that engages audiences during concerts, sporting events and live television broadcasts.
In March, it bought the Phoenix-based mobile and social networking marketing firm Bulbstorm.
In July 2011, it bought the Seattle-based customer relationship management division of the Chicago-based predictive analytics firm Apollo Data Technologies.
In January 2012, it bought the Chicago-based mobile marketing agency Cellit Inc.
ePrize is headquartered in a 46,000-square-foot former brewery east of Woodward Avenue near I-696. The company has other offices in New York, Chicago, Nashville, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Phoenix and Seattle.
