Social media monitoring firm TrustYou picked up $5 million in funding and recently crowned "strategic partner" ReviewAnalyst, too.
Munich-based TrustYou's more than 3,000 hotel customers had been concentrated in Germany, France, Spain, the UK and Japan, and with the acquisition of Dallas-headquartered ReviewAnalyst, TrustYou enters the U.S. market for the first time.
Together, the combined companies have more than 6,000 customers, including properties operating under big-name brands, a TrustYou spokeswoman says. ReviewAnalyst's customers include Hard Rock Cafe, Best Western, Omni Hotels and Starwood properties.
TrustYou recently took on the job of overhauling the star rating system for hotels in Germany.
The $5 million Series A funding round was led by Credit Agricole Private Equity, bringing TrustYou's total funding to date to $7 million.
TrustYou provides reputation management and social media analytics via semantic technologies to hotels in 10 languages.
"The funding will allow the company to expand both technology and marketing and sales functions across the globe," the TrustYou spokeswoman says.
Just a month ago, TrustYou and ReviewAnalyst entered into a "strategic partnership" so the acquisition takes that collaboration to a new level.
TrustYou was featured in a TLabs Showcase in June 2010.
TrustYou plans to keep both its and ReviewAnalyst's products in place, although they will be merged over time.
The social media monitoring application will eventually be called TrustYou ReviewAnalyst, the spokeswoman says.
Mike Wylie, ReviewAnalyst president, will stay on to run U.S. operations and the ReviewAnalyst team will continue on from Dallas headquarters, the spokeswoman says.