Focus Research, Inc. (www.focus.com), a leading provider of online research to enterprise buyers and high‐quality leads to IT vendors, has been sold to Ziff Davis, Inc. (www.ziffdavis.com), one of the nationʹs leading technology media companies.
Founded in 2005 with backing from Lightspeed Ventures, Trinity Ventures and GGV Capital, Focus Research (formerly known as Tippit) has helped thousands of business and IT professionals make better purchasing decisions while turning the Internet into a meaningful platform for B2B marketers.
Effective immediately, Focus Research will be renamed “Ziff Davis B2B Focus” and will operate as a standalone unit within Ziff Davis, Inc. The new business unit will continue to operate out of its current offices in San Francisco.
The third acquisition for Ziff Davis in just eight months, Ziff Davis B2B Focus gives the fast growing digital media company a new and powerful demand‐generation platform that it can offer to its marketing partners. As part of this transaction, a small group of Focus Research employees, including CEO Scott Albro, will leave to work on building out Focus.com as a separate business not affiliated with Ziff Davis.
Ziff Davis B2B Focus offers three demand‐gen products – highly qualified leads, content syndication and webinars – and operates a network of niche sites, including ITManagement.com, ITSecurity.com, VOIPNews.com and InsideCRM.com. In addition, it maintains one of the most robust databases in the IT space and a deep library of buying guides and whitepapers.
“Through this acquisition, Ziff Davis will strengthen its core mission of informing and influencing inmarket buyers of technology,” said Vivek Shah, CEO of Ziff Davis. “We welcome the Focus Research team to Ziff Davis and look forward to working together to provide our marketing clients a full array of solutions from premium display to data‐targeted advertising to lead‐gen programs across consumer and
business audiences.”
“My colleagues and I at Focus Research are very much looking forward to joining Ziff Davis and bringing the voice and perspective of our team to new audiences across the Web,” said Karen Cassel, VP of Products and Services for Ziff Davis B2B Focus.
“We look forward to tapping into Ziff Davis’ large tech database, network of properties and content library to drive valuable marketing campaigns for clients,” said Rich Maiers, VP of Sales for Ziff Davis B2B Focus.
JEGI CLARITY (www.jegiclarity.com) of New York, NY, the leading independent investment bank for the media, information, marketing services, and technology sectors, represented Focus Research in this transaction and acted as its exclusive financial advisor.
We are extremely impressed with JEGI CLARITY’s work on our recently closed deal. The team performed above and beyond expectations in all areas, but there were three that really stood out. First, the JEGI CLARITY network is remarkably expansive and provided unrivaled access to CEOs and corporate development professionals alike. Second, JEGI CLARITY ran a tight and detailed process with a rigor and attention to detail that I’ve rarely seen. Third, the team showed exceptional negotiating skills throughout the process and demonstrated a work ethic and intellect that is truly exceptional. We quite literally could not have done it without them.
Scott Albro, CEO, Focus Research