General Atlantic-backed Mu Sigma acquires Singapore-based social media analytics startup Webfluenz

General Atlantic-backed Big Data analytics firm Mu Sigma has acquired Singapore-based Webfluenz, a social media analytics company, for an undisclosed amount. As part of the acquisition, Mu Sigma will integrate Webfluenz's technology to build products that will enable mining of real-time intelligence from huge chunks of data.

"Webfluenz has been working with Mu Sigma on a variety of solutions and will add significantly to Mu Sigma's products portfolio in serving our clients' advanced needs going beyond traditional social media monitoring," read an official blog post by the company.

"We are building on this, along with integrating with other Mu Sigma products like muText and muESP to create next generation products that enable real time intelligence at the confluence of structured and unstructured data," it further read.

Investment banking firm Nine Rivers Capital advised Webfluenz on the deal.

Founded by Bharani Setlur (CEO) and Harish Madabushi (CTO) in 2010, Webfluenz provides products and solutions to analyse, manage, market and engage with social media and the real-time web. Prior to Webfluenz, the duo had co-founded 4am Design and Technology Labs. While Setlur is a National Institute of Design alumnus, Madabushi holds an MSc degree in theoretical computer science from Chennai Mathematical Institute.

Mu Sigma was founded in 2004 by Dhiraj C Rajaram, who was earlier a strategy consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Rajaram holds an MBA from the University of Chicago, an MS in Computer Engineering from Wayne State University, and a bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from College of Engineering Guindy, Anna University.

It helps companies institutionalise data-driven decision making and harness Big Data. Mu Sigma solves high-impact business problems in the areas of marketing, risk and supply chain across 10 industry verticals, and claims to have over 2,000 decision science professionals and more than 75 Fortune 500 clients.

In February last year, MasterCard Advisors, a division of the NYSE-listed MasterCard, hadentered into a strategic partnership with Mu Sigma that combined MasterCard Advisors' purchase behaviour insights with Mu Sigma's analytics. As part of the partnership, MasterCard had also acquired an equity stake in Mu Sigma.

In December 2011, Mu Sigma had raised funding worth $108 million, led by private equity firm General Atlantic. Earlier, in April 2011, the company also raised $25 million, led by Sequoia Capital. In the same year, Mu Sigma also topped the Service Provider Evaluation ranking among the pure play analytics companies.

(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)