// startup autopsy

CoTweet

The social media management pioneer swallowed by the enterprise cloud machine.

acquisition gone wrongAcqui-hire

Fatal mistake: CoTweet was absorbed into ExactTarget and then Salesforce, losing its standalone identity as social media management became a crowded enterprise feature.

Founded	2009
Closed	2012
Country	USA
Sector	Media

50%

Key Events Timeline

2009-01-01

FOUNDING

CoTweet founded by Jesse Engle to help brands manage Twitter accounts collaboratively.

2009-09-01

FUNDING

Raised $1.1M in seed funding to grow the social media management platform.

2010-11-01

ACQUISITION ATTEMPT

ExactTarget acquires CoTweet to bolster its social marketing capabilities.

2012-06-01

PIVOT

Salesforce acquires ExactTarget for $2.5B; CoTweet absorbed into Salesforce Marketing Cloud.

2012-12-01

SHUTDOWN

CoTweet ceases to exist as an independent product, fully integrated and sunset within Salesforce.

Full Analysis

Analyst plan

Documented cause

CoTweet was a social media management platform founded to help brands manage their social media presence. The company achieved product-market fit and was acquired by ExactTarget in 2010, validating its business...

model. However, this acquisition marked the beginning of the end for CoTweet as an independent product. When Salesforce acquired ExactTarget in 2012 for $2.5 billion, CoTweet was absorbed into the la

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€2M

Peak valuation

HypeCycle · MoatType · ResearchTags

CoTweet raised €1.1M before cotweet was absorbed into exacttarget and then salesforce, losing its standalone identity as social media management became a crowded enterprise feature. ended it. See the documented cause, verified lesson and all failure signals.

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