Now, I realize that this isn’t exactly Portland startup news. But it is former Portland startup news. And the company in question still has a significant presence here in town. And it’s Friday. So I feel it’s warranted. SurveyMonkey — now known as Momentive — is getting acquired as part of a $4 billion deal.
Momentive shareholders will receive 0.225 shares of Zendesk’s stock for each share of Momentive stock they own, which implied a value of about $28 per share at the time of the announcement.
“The SurveyMonkey brand is iconic, and we’ve admired their business from afar since the inception of Zendesk. They truly democratized an industry — almost everyone in the world has responded to one of their surveys at some point,” said Zendesk CEO and cofounder Mikkel Svane in a statement quoted by VentureBeat. “We’re very excited to have them join the Zendesk mission along with Momentive’s market research and insights products and together create a powerful new customer intelligence company. We will deliver a rich, colorful picture of every customer, so businesses really understand their customers and can build more authentic relationships.”
SurveyMonkey was founded in 1999 by Chris Finley and Ryan Finley. For a time, it was quietly headquartered in Portland before being sold to private to Private Equity in 2009. And has retained a significant office here, even through its variety of transitions. No word on what impact, if any, this will have on the Portland footprint of what is now Zendesk.
For more on the acquisition, see the statement from SurveyMonkey parent Momentive.
