Exclusive-Social commerce network Lockerz has acquired social sharing platform AddToAny. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
AddToAny, which has never raised any outside financing and is profitable, allows users to share and bookmark online content with social networks, news aggregators, email services, and instant messengers. The company was one of the first to offer a social sharing and bookmarking widget for website publishers and currently reaches 500 million unique users per month.
For monetization, AddToAny sells anonymous aggregate sharing data, which is used by clients to increase the relevancy of their ads. Revenue projections for 2012 ranged in the seven figures. To date, AddToAny’s WordPress plugin has been downloaded over 1.8 million times, and their Drupal module is actively installed on over 14,000 websites.
As wee’ve reported in the past, Lockerz revolves around the idea that influencers within a social network can become brand and content advocates and affect the behavior of their friends. The network, which says it is seeing 45 million monthly uniques, is primarily targeted towards men and women ages 13 to 30, attempting to build a community of trendsetters and tastemakers who love to shop, play and connect on the Web. Users can earn points and discounts on brands by sharing content on the site. Founded by Kathy Savitt, a former Amazon and American Eagle Outfitters exec; Lockerz eventually wants to be the go-to commerce homepage for teens and young adults.
Currently, 53 percent of the site’s users are college-aged; explains Savitt. And she sys that the site is seeing 15 minutes of engagement per member, compared to five minutes per member 6 months ago.
With the AddToAny acquisition, Lockerz expands its online sharing platform, which serves more than 1 billion photos per month via Lockers Photos and to date has issued nearly 200 million Decalz (akin to badges). And Savitt says that AddToAny’s founder Pat Diven II is a huge talent win for Lockerz.
Savitt says to that AddToAny will continue uninterrupted for both publishers and users but Lockerz will invite AddToAny users to become Lockerz members and begin earning rewards, or PTZ, for sharing content on the web. Over time, Lockerz and AddToAny plan to add additional features to the sharing widget while expanding Lockerz’s network of services.
For Lockerz, this is the second major acquisition in a matter of months. In January, Lockerz acquired photo sharing app Plixi as a way to boost photo sharing on its platform. The deal was reportedly between $10 million and $15 million.
And the company just closed on an major investment round, which Savitt confirmed. She says the round is significantly north of $30 million and the deal has added new investors. The company previously raised $30 million from Kleiner Perkins, Liberty Media and the CEO of Liberty Greg Maffei.
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