Clarabridge to be acquired by Utah firm in $1.13B deal

Reston-based software company Clarabridge Inc. is being acquired by Provo, Utah-based data analytics firm Qualtrics International Inc. in a nearly $1.13 billion all-stock deal, the companies announced Thursday.

Clarabridge’s platform uses artificial intelligence to provide conversational analytics — it is able to analyze customer feedback from indirect sources like social media, emails, support calls, chats and product reviews. The platform understands nuances such as effort, emotion and intent and comprehends 23 languages.

“Clarabridge’s ability to help companies discover what their customers are saying about them across unstructured sources and provide meaningful, actionable insights is a perfect complement to the Qualtrics platform,” Clarabridge CEO Mark Bishof said in a statement.

Qualtrics’ platform helps organizations ask customers and employees how they feel, analyze the data and act on the feedback received. Qualtrics calls the data gathered X-data, for experience data: “the beliefs, emotions, and intentions that tell you why things are happening.”

Founded in 2006, Clarabridge’s customers include United Airlines, General Motors Co. and UnitedHealthcare. Qualtrics has more than 13,500 customers, according to a news release.

Qualtrics CEO Zig Serafin said in a statement, “With our acquisition of Clarabridge, we’re accelerating our growth and leadership as the world’s No. 1 experience management company and taking the category we created to an entirely new level.”

Qualtrics will acquire Clarabridge in a fixed number of Qualtrics class A common stock shares with a share price of $37.33. The boards of directors of Qualtrics and Clarabridge have each approved the transaction, which is expected to close Dec. 31.

In 2020, Qualtrics reported total revenues of $763.5 million, up from $591.2 million in 2019. The company was acquired by German software company SAP SE in 2018 and taken public in 2020.