Wildfire Interactive
| File:Vertical Wildfire Logo.jpg | |
| Industry | Social marketing SaaS |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2008 |
| Founders | Alain Chuard, Victoria Ransom |
| Fate | Acquired by Google, 2012 |
Wildfire Interactive Inc, commonly referred to as Wildfire, was a software startup headquartered in Redwood City that specialized in social marketing solutions. The company created an application designed to help businesses build, enhance, and analyze their engagement across platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and YouTube. It was established in 2008 by Alain Chuard and Victoria Ransom.
In 2012, Wildfire was purchased by Google for an estimated $450 million. By 2014, Wildfire's technology had been incorporated into Google's advertising technology suite, DoubleClick, after which the platform saw minimal further development and ceased acquiring new customers.
Company history
Victoria Ransom and Alain Chuard launched Wildfire with the goal of creating social marketing tools to support their adventure travel business, Access Trips. Originally called Promotion Builder, the software concentrated on enabling users to build social media campaigns including contests, sweepstakes, quizzes, and coupon promotions. The fully developed platform was officially introduced in the summer of 2009.
In its early days, Wildfire secured a $250,000 grant from the Facebook Fund in 2008. Within its first month following launch, it generated $100,000 in revenue. The company raised $4 million during its Series A funding round in May 2010, followed by a $10 million investment round in 2012. Key investors comprised Summit Partners, Facebook, Accel Partners, and the Founder's Fund. By 2012, Wildfire had expanded to a workforce of 400 employees and earned recognition as one of the Bay Area's top ten workplaces in both 2011 and 2012.
After Google's acquisition for $450 million in July 2012, Wildfire's social analytics capabilities were merged into the DoubleClick platform by 2014. Subsequent development efforts slowed considerably and no new clients were added.
Overview
Wildfire's platform empowered businesses to interact with and monetize their audiences across multiple social networks including Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Google+. The suite featured components such as Pages, Promotions, Ads, Messages, and Monitoring tools that enabled users to plan and tailor campaigns according to their organizational size and objectives.