Sprout Social Acquires NewsWhip, Enhancing Predictive Intelligence Capabilities and Accelerating AI Roadmap
- Acquisition brings a predictive, agentic experience to enterprises looking to proactively navigate the complex media and social landscape
- Together, Sprout and NewsWhip will turn real-time, AI-powered intelligence into social action, empowering brands and publishers to engage with speed, precision and purpose
CHICAGO, July 30, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Sprout Social (NASDAQ:SPT), an industry-leading provider of cloud-based social media management software, today announced the acquisition of NewsWhip, a pioneer in AI-powered, predictive media intelligence. This acquisition will expand Sprout Social's footprint in the predictive intelligence market and create an innovative solution that empowers brands and publishers to navigate the digital media landscape with incredible foresight and agility.
Brands and publishers today can face upwards of tens of thousands of signals daily—from breaking news to emerging trends. Missing the one or two that matter most can mean lost opportunities or unforeseen crises. By integrating NewsWhip's predictive intelligence with Sprout Social's suite of solutions, brands and publishers will be able to get a comprehensive view of the media and social landscape, enabling them to detect critical signals and dive deeper into audience resonance so they can turn insights into confident action.
"NewsWhip's AI-driven insights give brands a predictive edge that's critical in today's fast-moving digital world," said Ryan Barretto, CEO of Sprout Social. "Their technology unlocks real-time, actionable intelligence that allows businesses to stay ahead of trends and risks. This acquisition accelerates our vision of delivering an agentic, AI-powered platform that seamlessly connects media foresight with social strategy to drive transformative outcomes for our customers."
NewsWhip was founded in 2011 with a focus on identifying the stories that the media and public care about most using social engagement data. Today, NewsWhip's real-time monitoring and AI agents uncover tens of millions of stories and over half a billion engagement signals daily, empowering top brands and publishers to identify stories gaining momentum before they hit peak virality. This gives users a strategic advantage to own the narrative and stay ahead of competitors. NewsWhip has been recognized by G2 as a High Performer across four categories in the summer 2025 reports, including Enterprise Media Monitoring.
"We founded NewsWhip to harness real-time intelligence to redefine how brands and publishers anticipate and act on media trends," said Paul Quigley, CEO of NewsWhip. "Sprout Social's market-leading platform, proven go-to-market strategy and commitment to innovation make them the ideal partner to build on this vision. Together, we're poised to deliver incredible value to our customers and establish a leading position in the rapidly growing predictive intelligence market."
As part of the acquisition, the NewsWhip team will join Sprout Social, bringing their expertise and innovative spirit to enhance the two companies' offerings. Paul Quigley, the co-founder and CEO of NewsWhip, will step into the role of General Manager for Sprout's Listening business, overseeing both NewsWhip and Sprout's Listening products.
Financial Details
Consideration for the NewsWhip acquisition consisted of $55 million of cash and up to $10 million in performance-based cash earnouts applicable over the next two years. The acquisition, which closed on July 29, 2025, was funded with Sprout's revolving credit facility and cash on its balance sheet.
"We are excited to deepen Sprout's Listening capabilities with NewsWhip's industry-leading real-time insights and innovative AI agents, which we believe will accelerate our AI roadmap over the next several years," said Joe Del Preto, CFO of Sprout Social. "NewsWhip has earned the trust of globally recognized brands for critical crisis management. We will discuss NewsWhip in more detail on our second-quarter earnings call on August 6, 2025."
About NewsWhip
NewsWhip is the real-time media intelligence company trusted by some of the world's top brands and publishers to predict and understand the impact of emerging stories. Its technology monitors millions of news and social media signals per hour—surfacing rising narratives, assessing momentum, and delivering predictive, context-rich alerts through its real-time media monitoring agent. To learn more, visit newswhip.com.
About Sprout Social
Sprout Social is a global leader in social media management and analytics software, built on the belief that All Business is Social℠. Sprout's intuitive platform puts powerful social data into the hands of approximately 30,000 brands so they can deliver smarter, faster business impact. Named the #1 Best Software Product by G2's 2024 Best Software Award, Sprout offers comprehensive publishing and engagement functionality, customer care, influencer marketing, advocacy, and AI-powered business intelligence. Sprout's software operates across all major social media networks and digital platforms. For more information about Sprout Social (NASDAQ:SPT), visit sproutsocial.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by terms such as "anticipate," "believe," "can," "continue," "could," "estimate," "expect," "explore," "future," "intend," "may," "might," "outlook," "plan," "potential," "predict," "project," "should," "strategy," "target," "will," "would," or the negative of these terms, and similar expressions intended to identify forward-looking statements. However, not all forward-looking statements contain these identifying words. These statements may relate to our market size and growth strategy, our expectations concerning the acquisition of NewsWhip and the benefits and other effects thereof on our footprint, growth, and products and solutions, our plans and objectives for future operations, growth, initiatives or strategies, and other statements that are not historical fact. By their nature, these statements are subject to numerous uncertainties and risks, including factors beyond our control, that could cause actual results, performance or achievement to differ materially and adversely from those anticipated or implied in the forward-looking statements. These assumptions, uncertainties and risks include that, among others: we may not be able to sustain our revenue and customer growth rate in the future, including due to risks associated with our strategic focus on enterprise customers; price increases have and may continue to negatively impact demand for our products, customer acquisition and retention and reduce the total number of customers or customer additions; our business would be harmed by any significant interruptions, delays or outages in services from our platform, our API providers, or certain social media platforms; if we are unable to attract potential customers through unpaid channels, convert this traffic to free trials or convert free trials to paid subscriptions, our business and results of operations may be adversely affected; we may be unable to successfully enter new markets, manage our international expansion and comply with any applicable international laws and regulations; we may be unable to integrate acquired businesses or technologies successfully or achieve the expected benefits of such acquisitions and investments, including with respect to the NewsWhip acquisition; unstable market, economic, and political conditions, such as recession risks, effects of inflation, trade tensions, changes in government spending, labor shortages, supply chain issues, high interest rates, and the impacts of current and potential future bank failures and ongoing overseas conflicts, have and could continue to adversely impact our business and that of our existing and prospective customers, which may result in reduced demand for our products; we may not be able to generate sufficient cash to service our indebtedness; covenants in our credit agreement may restrict our operations, and if we do not effectively manage our business to comply with these covenants, our financial condition could be adversely impacted; any cybersecurity-related attack, significant data breach or disruption of the information technology systems or networks on which we rely could negatively affect our business; changing regulations relating to privacy, information security and data protection could increase our costs, affect or limit how we collect and use personal information and harm our brand; and risks related to ongoing legal proceedings. Additional risks and uncertainties that could cause actual outcomes and results to differ materially from those contemplated by the forward-looking statements are included under the caption "Risk Factors" and elsewhere in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"), including our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2024 filed with the SEC on February 26, 2025 and our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2025, to be filed with the SEC as well as any future reports that we file with the SEC. Moreover, you should interpret many of the risks identified in those reports as being heightened as a result of the current and ongoing instability in market, economic, and political conditions. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date the statements are made and are based on information available to Sprout Social at the time those statements are made and/or management's good faith belief as of that time with respect to future events. Sprout Social assumes no obligation to update forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date they were made, except as required by law.
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Contact
Media:
Kaitlyn Gronek
Email: [email protected]
Phone: (773) 904-9674
Investors:
Alex Kurtz
Email: investors@sproutsocial.com
Phone: (312) 528-9166
