MediaMiser ready to take on world after acquisition

New Jersey-based information technology company Innodata has purchased Ottawa media monitoring firm MediaMiser for $5.78 million, the companies announced Tuesday.

MediaMiser president Chris Morrison said the company will operate as a subsidiary of Innodata, and Ottawa will continue to be a centre of excellence for media monitoring analysis.

“We will continue to develop our products out of Ottawa, continue to drive services out of Ottawa,” he said.

Mr. Morrison said the deal will allow MediaMiser, which provides software as well as professional services to public relations and marketing firms, to expand internationally. Currently, 95 percent of its business is in Canada.

“With Innodata’s global offices, sales offices and technology teams, they can open some doors to new markets and we know our services and products are applicable to those new markets out of the gate,” he said.

Mr. Morrison said it will be business as usual for the company, which has no immediate plans to add to its local headcount of 52. There will likely be more staff added in Ottawa in the next few years, he said, as well as in some of Innodata’s international offices.

Mr. Morrison said the United States and United Kingdom will be early targets for growth, but with Innodata’s help and investment, the company could one day expand around the world.

“We’ve got multilingual capabilities of content and analyzing content, and it’s just a matter of prioritizing other countries,” he said.

While the deal will bring more clients to the firm, he said existing clients will also benefit.

“What this will definitely accomplish is adding more functionality to our web-based software so they can do more and also expand our service lines as well,” Mr. Morrison said.

Under the deal, Innodata is paying $4.4 million in cash upfront, with deferred payments of $630,000 next July and $750,000 in July 2016. MediaMiser could also receive an additional $5 million in May 2017 if certain growth targets are met.

MediaMiser has seen revenue growth in each of its last 12 quarters and revenue growth of 25 per cent over the last three years.

Still, Mr. Morrison said the company is just getting started.

“It’s an exciting day as a bootstrap company to get to this stage. Ten years later, we’re not a startup, but the majority of startups don’t get to this stage,” he said. “Seventy-one per cent don’t make it to 10 years, so we’re excited to beat the odds and have a local success story, and our team is excited to take the next step.”