Mynewsdesk acquires web monitoring service Mention

Communications workflow company Mynewsdesk is acquiring French startup Mention for an undisclosed sum. Norwegian business media group NHST currently owns Mynewsdesk.

Mention lets you monitor keywords around the web. It’s a good way to hear what customers are saying about your brand on their blog, on Twitter, on Facebook or anywhere that is public.

You can also use Mention to generate reports, study competitors to see if people are talking about them and find influencers who use your products. It can be a useful tool for PR and marketing companies for instance.

Mynewsdesk wants to be an all-in-one tool for PR agencies. It can also help you track media coverage, but it goes a bit further than that. You can organize your media contacts in the service and segment your distribution list, write and distribute press releases and measure your campaigns.

It’s clear that Mention fits well with Mynewsdesk. Mention will stick around as a standalone product for now. But it feels like the monitoring feature of Mynewsdesk could benefit from Mention’s expertise in this area.

Mention currently has 750,000 users, including 4,000 customers. It generates $6 million in annual recurring revenue with a 35 percent growth rate year-over-year. Investors include eFounders, Alven and Point Nine Capital. Mention co-founder and CEO Matthieu Vaxelaire is becoming COO at Mynewsdesk.