Thomas H Lee Partners takes majority stake in Bazaarvoice

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Mar 30, 2021

Bazaarvoice — the product reviews and user-generated content (UGC) solutions specialist — has a new majority shareholder. Thomas H Lee Partners (THL), a major private equity firm investing in growth companies, has taken a controlling stake the firm, although previous majority investor Marlin Equity Partners will continue to be a “material shareholder”.

UGC is a key factor in diving e-commerce traffic and Bazaarvoice has a network of over 11,500 brands and retailers to which it provides technology to collect, moderate, curate, and distribute UGC. Its Influenster community has over six million consumers writing more than a million reviews each month.

“Shopping migration from offline to online channels is a trend that we expect to sustain for many years,” said Jeff Swenson, MD at THL. “Consumers value the voices of other consumers in their shopping journeys, and Bazaarvoice offers marketers a mission-critical set of solutions to help acquire, curate and deliver UGC at scale to their customers.”

In the past year, the company has grown “significantly by expanding its integrated solution portfolio in response to our customers’ increasing and growing need to leverage UGC at scale to drive revenue,” said its CEO Keith Nealon. “Last year, we solidified our position as the only full-funnel platform by acquiring Curalate, a visual and social content offering that helps create product inspiration and allows consumers to make unexpected discoveries.”