Buzzient Raises $$ to Build a World Class Software Company Here in Boston

Now headquartered in Boston’s Innovation District, Buzzient is a social media analytics company that was founded in Cambridge in 2008. Buzzient is not — I repeat, NOT — a social media marketing company. Keep this in mind as you continue reading.

Buzzient’s CEO, Timothy Bernard Jones, recently led a $1.1 million inside round of financing for the company through his seed fund, TBJ Investments. However, the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) form that the company filed indicates that funding for the round could top out at nearly $1.4 million.

I recently posed some questions to Buzzient’s Head of Marketing, Bruce Kasrel. Kasrel informed me that the company plans on using this recent financing to continue building out the Buzzient team, especially in the development department. “One of our missions is to build a world class software company here in Boston,” Kasrel commented.

Now, we can no longer ignore the large, orange elephant lurking in the room: Cambridge-based inbound marketing software company, HubSpot. HubSpot has been quite the hungry elephant this summer, acquiring the marketing automation company, Performable, in June and the social media management company, oneforty, in August. When I asked Kasrel about HubSpot, he advised me to check out a recent blog post by Buzzient’s CEO (Jones), which provides some insight into Buzzient’s take on HubSpot’s recent activity.

While Jones opens his post by congratulating “all those involved” in the HubSpot/oneforty deal, he goes on to say that Buzzient was approached about a oneforty acquisition deal “several months ago.” The key reason why Buzzient did not acquire oneforty? Oneforty — like HubSpot — is a social media marketing (SMM) company. In contrast, Buzzient is a social customer relationship management (CRM) company. And SMM and social CRM are two different disciplines.

“Hubspot/oneforty customers are in the SMM category, where social media is used to identify leads, run social campaigns, and drive marketing communications. Buzzient’s customer base is managing complex, ongoing customer relationships, whether that be loyalty programs, customer service, or sales,” Jones wrote. “SMM is very often the lead in to Social CRM, but the two categories are not the same.”

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Posted by erik devaney on Aug 30 2011. Filed under Business, Top Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry