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Demand Media’s turn around effort continued this last week with the selling off of Pluck, a social media management platform, to Sprinklr for an undisclosed amount. Pluck is one of a series of companies sold by Demand in the last year in an effort refocus itself and reignite growth.
Over the summer of 2014, Demand Media began reshaping itself by off-loading several businesses including Creativebug, CoveritLive and Rightside Group. By off-loading certain companies Demand Media believes it will be able to focus on more high growth businesses.
When the company sold Creativebug and CoveritLive over the summer, interim chief executive officer Shawn Colo in a statement: “By streamlining our approach to the business, we can more effectively connect passionate audiences with engaged experts, artists and opinion makers across our consumer lifestyle brands and our Content Solutions partners.”
As part of that reshaping, in August Demand Media purchased Saatchi Art for $16 million and brought on that company’s CEO, Sean Moriarty as its new CEO. Prior to Demand Media and Saatchi Art, Moriarty was the chief executive at Ticketmaster.
Demand Media’s business units now include e-commerce art store Saatchi Art, art printer Society 6, as well as content businesses eHow, Cracked and Livestrong.com.
When it came to the sale of Pluck, Demand Media appears to be spinning off one of its last incompatible businesses.
“For an enterprise platform that sits within a media company, it was more of a question of whether it was a true fit or not,” said Josh Teitelman, Pluck’s vice president and general manager, to Venture Beat.
Based in Austin, Texas, the whole Pluck team will be joining social media management platform company Sprinklr. Pluck was purchased originally by Demand in 2008 for $56.2 million.
Now free of unrelated businesses, the next step for Demand Media is finding the right model to reignite growth.
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