Local online survey provider Fluidware was acquired on Tuesday by California-based SurveyMonkey in a deal the Ottawa firm calls a match made in heaven.
Terms of the transaction, including purchase price, were not announced. But a release issued Tuesday said Fluidware co-founders and co-CEOs Eli Fathi and Aydin Mirzaee would remain with the combined company. They were not immediately available for comment.
SurveyMonkey CEO Dave Goldberg said Mr. Mirzaee would be in charge of product development out of Ottawa, while also working with the California team on product development of the SurveyMonkey platform. Mr. Fathi will be retained as a consultant during the transition period but will not stay on past that time.
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In the statement, Mr. Mirzaee said his firm is thrilled to be joining forces with its U.S. counterpart.
“As part of SurveyMonkey’s unrivaled product portfolio, FluidSurveys and FluidReview will benefit from superior resources and support, including a proven management team with more than 15 years of operating experience,” said Mr. Mirzaee. “We will be able to accelerate and scale the development of innovative software solutions that empower customers worldwide.”
The release said no changes are planned at Fluidware’s office on York Street, where all 75 staff will be retained. There will also be no change in the location of Fluidware’s customer survey or applicant data, the company said. It will still be stored in Canada and protected by national standards in place before the deal was announced.
“We think it’s important to Canadians that their data stays in Canada … we wanted to make sure that we kept that and maintained that,” said Mr. Goldberg.
He added Fluidware customers will benefit from the deal because SurveyMonkey offers excellent customer service and has more capital to invest in making existing products better.
This was the first acquisition for SurveyMonkey in two years. Mr. Goldberg said the timing was right for both companies.
“They’ve built a great business, but we felt we could help them kind of extend what they’ve built, and for us it’s a great way to expand our international customer base and to add their products, which have some great features and functionality that we don’t have today,” he said.
