Symphony Buys Restaurant CEM Firm Fishbowl

Palo Alto, CA-based Symphony Technology Group (STG) has acquired Fishbowl Inc., which provides insight-based customer engagement platforms for the restaurant industry.

STG is a private equity firm which has bought, built and sold research and information firms and is currently the owner of IRI, Simmons, Hitwise and Connexity / Shopzilla, among others. Its latest acquisition, Fishbowl, is based in Alexandria, VA, with offices in Silicon Valley, the UK and India, and pulls in structured and unstructured data from multiple sources including POS, email clubs, mobile, online ordering and reservations, to help more than 70,000 restaurant locations to understand and engage their customers.

As part of the deal, STG MD Marc Bala and VP Adam Hendricks will join Fishbowl's Board of Directors. Fishbowl CEO Dev Ganesan (pictured) says STG have 'a tremendous track record of delivering innovation and scale in the analytics and CRM space', and believes the new parent's investment and strategic support will allow his company to scale its platform and continue to 'revolutionize the restaurant industry'.

According to Bala, 'Fishbowl is an established leader in the restaurant industry with an excellent track record of providing innovative and mission-critical solutions that serve the needs of more than 250 of the world's leading brands and restaurant chains. We are thrilled to partner with Dev and the Fishbowl team'.

Web sites: www.symphonytg.com and www.fishbowl.com .