Bangalore :

Startup posterboy Mu Sigma is making its first acquisition by buying Singapore-based social media analytics company Webfluenz. The Bangalore company, which is valued at $1 billion and counts Microsoft, Pfizer, and Dell among its clients, will integrate Webfluenz’s technology to create products to mine real-time intelligence from huge chunks of data.

“Webfluenz will add significantly to Mu Sigma’s products portfolio in serving our clients’ advanced needs going beyond traditional social media monitoring,” said Deepinder Dhingra, head of products and strategy at the data analytics company.

Mu Sigma, which employs around 3,500 employees, declined to reveal financial details of the deal. Investment banking firm Nine Rivers Capital was the advisor to Webfluenz, which was founded by National Institute of Design graduate Bharani Setlur and Chennai Mathematical Institute alumnus Harish Madabushi in 2010.The team created a platform to monitor, analyse and manage social media and the realtime web. “We are excited to be a part of Mu Sigma,” said Setlur, the 33-year-old chief executive officer of Webfluenz.

The firm has helped customers such as toy retailer Hamleys, Publicis Omnicom Group and Japanese advertising  firm Dentsu to track and analyse social media conversations on topics or brands . The platform includes technology such as natural language processing, multi lingual text analytics and advanced algorithms for sentiment mining, according to the company.

Experts said the acquisition comes during a time when Mu Sigma, which is services firm, is trying hard to make its mark in the big data products space dominated by global players such as Palantir Cloudera and Splunk. The demand for big data analytics product companies has increased rapidly because of their ability to draw sophisticated insights from large volumes of information.

For example, US-based Palantir helped intelligence agencies eliminate terrorist financing networks and find trends in roadside bomb attacks. Its technology was also used in tracking down Osama bin Laden. This year the market for big data will reach $16.1 billion (Rs 96,000 crore), growing six times faster than the overall IT market, according to research firm IDC .

There have been 159 merger and acquisition transactions worth $1.78 billion (Rs 10,000 crore) involving Indian technology product companies since 2010, according to software product think-tank iSpirt and advisory firm  Signal Hill .

source: http://www.articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com / The Economic Times / Home> News> Emerging Businesses> Startups / by Peerzada Abrar, ET Bureau / July 01st, 2014