Acquisition will strengthen sentiment analysis and natural language processing functionality in Sprout’s unified social media management platform

CHICAGO, January 19, 2023 – Sprout Social, Inc. (“Sprout Social”, the “Company”) (Nasdaq: SPT), an industry-leading provider of social media management software, today announced the acquisition of Repustate, an innovative sentiment analysis and natural language processing company. Through this acquisition, Sprout will increase the power, breadth and automation of social listening, messaging and customer care capabilities with added sentiment analysis, natural language processing (NLP) and artificial-intelligence (AI). 

“Sentiment analysis and artificial intelligence are key to managing social media at scale and with the addition of Repustate technology, we’re excited to bring an even deeper set of capabilities to our customers,” said Justyn Howard, Sprout Social’s CEO and Co-Founder. “We believe the addition of Repustate’s AI, domain expertise and talented team will accelerate our technology roadmap across core Sprout products including aspect-based and industry sentiment within our social listening capabilities and enhanced functionality for inbox messaging and social customer care.”

Founded in 2010, Repustate uses AI-powered semantic technology to model sentiment analysis, text analytics and enterprise search solutions. Repustate reads and analyzes text and video content natively, transforming data through natural language processing, artificial intelligence and machine learning into business intelligence.

“We are excited to accelerate our existing technology roadmap across both our social listening and social customer care efforts with the addition of the Repustate technology and team,” said Joe Del Preto, CFO. “We expect the financial impact to be immaterial to our previously communicated near term financial goals. However, we expect these technology investments to provide upside to our medium term growth goals beginning in calendar year 2024.”

About Sprout Social

Sprout Social offers deep social media listening and analytics, social management, customer care, commerce and advocacy solutions to more than 34,000 brands and agencies worldwide. Sprout’s unified platform integrates the power of social throughout every aspect of a business and enables social leaders at every level to extract valuable data and insights that drive their business forward. Headquartered in Chicago, Sprout operates across major social media networks and digital platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, YouTube and LinkedIn.

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,” “intend,” “long-term model,” “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 estimated and projected costs, margins, revenue, expenditures and customer and financial growth rates, our Q4 and 2022 financial outlook, our plans and objectives for future operations, growth, initiatives or strategies. 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: difficulty integrating Repustate or its technology into our business, any unknown potential contractual, intellectual property right or tax law violations by Repustate, our rapid growth and limited history with key features of our platform makes it difficult to evaluate our prospects and future operating results; we may not be able to sustain our revenue and customer growth rate in the future; 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; the effects and duration of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic are unpredictable and may materially affect our customers and how we operate our business, and the duration and extent to which the pandemic continues to threaten our future results of operations; unstable market and economic conditions, such as recession risks, effects of inflation, labor shortages, supply chain issues, higher interest rates and geopolitical impacts of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, could adversely impact our business and that of our existing and prospective customers, which may result in reduced demand for our products; 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; and 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. 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, 2021 filed with the SEC on February 23, 2022, as well as any other future quarterly and current 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 ongoing and numerous adverse impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and current instability in market and economic 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.

Availability of Information on Sprout Social’s Website and Social Media Profiles

Investors and others should note that Sprout Social routinely announces material information to investors and the marketplace using SEC filings, press releases, public conference calls, webcasts and the Sprout Social Investors website. We also intend to use the social media profiles listed below as a means of disclosing information about us to our customers, investors and the public.  While not all of the information that the Company posts to the Sprout Social Investors website or to social media profiles is of a material nature, some information could be deemed to be material. Accordingly, the Company encourages investors, the media, and others interested in Sprout Social to review the information that it shares at the Investors link located at the bottom of the page on www.sproutsocial.com and to regularly follow our social media profiles. Users may automatically receive email alerts and other information about Sprout Social when enrolling an email address by visiting “Email Alerts” in the “Shareholder Services” section of Sprout Social’s Investor website at https://investors.sproutsocial.com/.

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