Telligent’s Acquisition Signals Social Market Consolidation and Fuels Company Growth

(LONDON, UK) December 20, 2011 - Telligent, a leader in social community software for the enterprise, today announced its acquisition of San Francisco-based Leverage Software, a leader in enterprise social networking.

“We are particularly thrilled to gain the leading cloud technology, people-centered design, prestigious customer list and employee talent that Leverage brings,” says Telligent CEO Patrick Brandt.  “Telligent and Leverage have roots as pure-play social community providers; consolidation in the market is natural and it’s how we grow together.”

Leverage is recognized as a pioneer in social on-demand (SaaS) with well-known customers including The Home Depot, Redken, Wells Fargo, and Stanford University that rely on its cloud-based social networking capabilities for outward customer as well as internal employee uses including field sales and marketing enablement.

“It’s becoming more and more obvious that social is the new norm. Just look at the extraordinary adoption rates of Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter,” says Brandt. “We continue to see proof that companies are experiencing enormous real benefit with social; evident by the sheer number of success stories illustrating how businesses are reaping benefit by engaging customers, facilitating partners and enabling employees.”

According to Forrester Research, the social enterprise apps market will approach $6.4B by 2016.(1) Moreover, Forrester recognized Telligent as a leader in its “The Forrester Wave™: Enterprise Social Platforms, Q3 2011” report earlier this year.(2)

Telligent and Leverage management anticipate a seamless integration. “Both Telligent and Leverage share a similar business culture around devotion to customer success, and both are built on Microsoft technology.  Our respective customers will reap the benefits of our shared services, talent and technology,” says Leverage founder Joe Kleinschmidt.

Kleinschmidt, who will join the Telligent team as Vice President of Cloud Products, adds that Telligent will expand services and functionality for existing Leverage customers in the following ways:

    The ability to tap into a large customer community of brands that are industry pioneers and innovators in adopting social across their global organizations
    Access to highly rated customer experience and support as well as Telligent’s expanded services offerings around implementation, training and educational programs
    Becoming part of a larger partner ecosystem comprised of application developers, digital agencies and system integrators

“We are shaping the next decade of social,” explains Rob Howard founder and CTO of Telligent. “Telligent and Leverage are expanding our platform capabilities, delivering social anywhere – on your website, smartphone, or your corporate intranet – and we are accelerating our ability to do it in the cloud.”

Catapult Advisors LLC acted as exclusive financial advisor to Leverage Software on the transaction.

(1) Social Enterprise Apps Redefine Collaboration, Forrester Research, Inc., November 30 2011.

(2) The Forrester Wave™: Enterprise Social Platforms, Q3 2011, Forrester Research, Inc., August 24, 2011.