Bazaarvoice is a

technology company A technology company (or tech company) is a company that focuses primarily on the manufacturing, support, research and development of—most commonly computing, telecommunication and consumer electronics–based—technology-intensive products and ...

based in Austin, Texas, that provides

software Software consists of computer programs that instruct the Execution (computing), execution of a computer. Software also includes design documents and specifications. The history of software is closely tied to the development of digital comput ...

that allows

brand A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's goods or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create and ...

s and

retail Retail is the sale of goods and services to consumers, in contrast to wholesaling, which is the sale to business or institutional customers. A retailer purchases goods in large quantities from manufacturers, directly or through a wholes ...

ers to collect and display several types of

user-generated content User-generated content (UGC), alternatively known as user-created content (UCC), emerged from the rise of web services which allow a system's User (computing), users to create Content (media), content, such as images, videos, audio, text, testi ...

(UGC) on their

e-commerce E-commerce (electronic commerce) refers to commercial activities including the electronic buying or selling products and services which are conducted on online platforms or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile co ...

websites. Bazaarvoice's services include product ratings and reviews, questions and answers, sampling, visual and social content, insights, social commerce and social publishing.

History

Bazaarvoice was cofounded in 2005 by Brett Hurt and Brant Barton in Austin, Texas. Currently, the company also has offices in New York City, Chicago, London, Munich, Belfast, Paris, Vilnius, Sydney, and Bengaluru. The company has over 900 employees globally. Initially, Bazaarvoice focused on software that lets businesses add product reviews to their websites. Bazaarvoice later expanded to include software that allows businesses to analyze reviews, ratings, videos, social media, and other user-generated content posted by customers, which is used by companies including

Wal-Mart Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores in the United States and 23 other ...

AT&T AT&T Inc., an abbreviation for its predecessor's former name, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the w ...

and

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

. The company went public on the

NASDAQ The Nasdaq Stock Market (; National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the U.S. by volume, and ranked second on the list ...

in 2012, raising $114 million in its initial public offering. Following that, in a 2013

Gartner Gartner, Inc. is an American research and advisory firm focusing on business and technology topics. Gartner provides its products and services through research reports, conferences, and consulting. Its clients include large corporations, gover ...

report, Bazaarvoice was named one of the ten fastest growing CRM vendors. A year later in 2014, Bazaarvoice and TripleLift partnered to allow native ads to run on client websites. In 2018, the company was taken private after being purchased by Marlin Equity Partners. In 2021, Bazaarvoice announced a majority investment from

Thomas H. Lee Partners Thomas H. Lee Partners, L.P. is an American private equity firm headquartered in Boston. The firm focuses on investing in middle market growth companies across various sectors, including financial technology, services, healthcare, technology, ...

. Over the years, the company has made a variety of acquisitions, including AddStructure, a

natural language processing Natural language processing (NLP) is a subfield of computer science and especially artificial intelligence. It is primarily concerned with providing computers with the ability to process data encoded in natural language and is thus closely related ...

platform, in 2018; Influenster, a product discovery and review platform, in 2019; and Curalate, a social commerce platform, in 2020. Keith Nealon was named CEO in January 2020, replacing interim CEO Joe Davis.

References

{{Reflist, 30em Marketing companies of the United States Marketing companies established in 2005 Companies based in Austin, Texas Software companies of the United States Software companies established in 2005 E-commerce software Customer relationship management software companies