Startups Buying Startups: Infogr.am Acquires Visualoop

    Latvia-based Infogram announces today that they’ve acquired Visualoop, a brazilian data visualization news site that covers Infographics in English and Portuguese.

    Infogram has gotten their infographic tool used at publications like the Washington Post and other major media houses, but the acquisition looks like it will be used to stay on the forefront of this medium.

    “Our ambition is the make Visualoop the leading data visualisation blog in the World,” says Uldis Leiterts, co-founder and CEO of Infogr.am: “It would strengthen our presence in Brazil, it would also support the social mission of Infogr.am to educate and raise the overall interest in data visualization”

    Despite the acquisition, Infogram pledges to give editorial independence to Visualoop, whose content is controlled by their newly formed editorial board consisting of Alberto Cairo, Mariana Santos and Santiago Ortiz. Cairo is described as a professor at the University of Miami, while Santos is a JSK Knight Fellow at Stanford.

    The acquisition took place in a cash and stock deal. The amount is not specified but most recently Infogram raised 1.34 million euro last February.

    Infogram has transitioned greatly in this last year. Getting off the ground they went through accelerators Startup Sauna and Hackfwd, while pitching at so many startup events that you wondered if they had time to work on their product. This year they seem to have made progress with their product, grew up the team, launched a non-profit arm, and now are apparently acquiring companies.

    With this acquisition, Infogram has essentially bought an advertising platform and a place to experiment with new types of storytelling. It’s strategic, but it seems rare enough to beg the question – should more startups buy value though mergers or acquisitions, or should they be the ones innovating and being acquired themselves?