Compete Inc Is Acquired by TNS

Compete, the web analytics and online market research startup which is based in Boston has been acquired by Taylor Nelson Sofres plc (TNS), for $75 million. TNS which is based in London is a leading market information and insight company.

Additionally, it has been reported by Techcrunch that another $75 million is possible in earn-outs through 2010, which there for could potentially bring the acquisition to $150 million. This seems to be quite a good price for Compete, considering their main competitor comScorehas a market cap of $570 million.

Compete’s revenues in 2007 rose 50 percent to $15 million, but it lost $4.5 million. Now in 2008 with an acquisition of the company, will Compete move into a more corporate business model and start to charge for ranking information?

According to Somewhat Frank, here is what we can expect to see from Compete now that they are acquired:

1. New products. Compete will continue to operate as a stand-alone company, but we have already identified stellar new product opportunities to develop with the TNS media intelligence and custom research teams;

2. Biggest data. We already had the most clickstream data in the industry pre-merger, and now the TNS consumer panels extend our advantage over the other digital research companies;

3. Rapid growth. From the start, the Compete vision has always been to become the number one digital intelligence company in the world. TNS has tens of thousands of clients across 80 countries. That’s a nice global platform to be a part of.

Tags: acquisition compete tns