Meltwater buys business information company Owler

Founded in 2011, Owler’s online business community has five million members who contribute insights on topics including private company revenue estimates, employee headcount and growth trends.  

The company is based in San Mateo, California, with offices in Washington state and India.

Meltwater, headquartered in San Francisco, has agreed to purchase Owler for $18.9m in cash and $5.6m in Meltwater equity.

Meltwater will combine Owler’s information with the data it extracts from online news and social media.

All Owler staff and the senior team, including chief executive and co-founder Tim Harsch (pictured), will join Meltwater when the acquisition has completed.

John Box, chief executive, Meltwater, said: “Owler crowdsources information that would otherwise be impossible to find. It not only strengthens our offering in use cases we serve today, such as brand management and competitive intelligence, but opens up new opportunities in areas such as sales intelligence and risk management, where Owler is already present.”

Harsch added: “By joining Meltwater’s artificial intelligence expertise with Owler’s community and crowdsourcing capabilities, Meltwater’s global customer base will unlock new markets and new opportunities to combine business information with news and social media content from around the world.”