Social analytics companies MVPindex and Umbel are merging

MVPindex and Umbel, two companies delivering social media data to the sports and entertainment industries, are teaming up.

The combined company will be led by MVPindex’s co-founders, with Stan Woodward serving as CEO, Shawn Spieth as president and chairman and Kyle Nelson as chief marketing officer. Umbel will be represented on the executive team as well, with CFO Iser Cukierman becoming the overall CFO and manager of the Umbel business unit.

Woodward said that the companies have complementary products: MVPindex measures the impact of campaigns by athletes and entertainers, while Umbel is used by sports and entertainment brands to leverage fan data for targeted engagement and promotions.

MVPindex and Umbel will continue to operate as two independent brands, with Woodward describing the combined business entity as “just a holding company … not a new brand.” The company will be headquartered in Austin (where Umbel is based), with an office in MVPindex’s home in Dallas.

“The culture is very similar,” Woodward said. “It’s a very progressive, very intelligent culture, so there will be easy opportunities to mix it up … Most of their existing team will hopefully stay in place.”

He added said that some aspects of the products need to remain independent — MVPindex, for example, should continue to be “an independent currency and valuation metric.” Still, he described this as a “one plus one equals three” situation, so there will integrations over time.

“Parts of the outputs of the system — benchmark analysis, recaps — that all will be integrated where needed,” Woodward said.

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