Crimson Hexagon’s artificial intelligence and historical data index will be combined with Brandwatch Analytics’ data handling and flexible user interface. The company will add more data from marketing, customer behaviour and market research sources to the platform to expand beyond social intelligence.

The deal is expected to close by the end of the year and product integration will begin immediately, although both products will continue to be supported and operate independently for an extended period.

Giles Palmer (pictured), founder and CEO of Brandwatch, said: "In this digitally connected world, our vision is to transform how organisations understand their consumers through products that bring structure and meaning to the public voices of billions of people. This merger allows us to accelerate towards that vision and move beyond social listening."

Chris Bingham, chief technology officer at Crimson Hexagon, said in a blog post on the site: "For over a decade we’ve watched and learned from each other as competitors as we grew our companies. Each regarded the other as the competitor they most admired.

"Now the competitors are becoming one. The merger will give us greater scale and breadth than either company had alone. This will be a big change, and change can be hard. There are some things we’ll give up, like the coolest company name in the world. But what we’re not giving up is Crimson’s amazing team, technology, customers, and culture."

Brandwatch has offices in Brighton, New York, San Francisco, Berlin, Stuttgart, Paris, Singapore and soon Sydney.