QuestionPro, a Seattle Web-survey and market-research company, has acquired RapidEngage, a San Diego startup with micro survey technology that enables merchants and other businesses to gather customer feedback in less than 30 seconds.
RapidEngage was co-founded in 2012 as SlimSurveys by Sean Callahan, Rodney Rumford, and Daniel Marashlian. They self-funded the startup, and Rumford said they were able to keep their startup costs at a minimum after they were admitted to EvoNexus, the pro bono incubator program operated by San Diego’s CommNexus industry group.
Financial terms of the deal were not being disclosed, Rumford said by phone. The three founders, who were the only RapidEngage employees, have all moved on to separate endeavors, Rumford said.
Daniel Marashlian (left), Sean Callahan, and Rodney Rumford
Marashlian, Callahan, and Rumford had previously developed the photo-sharing app Plixi (known previously as TweetPhoto) that was acquired by Lockerz in 2011.
The founders initially designed SlimSurveys as a mobile micro survey, but Rumford said they expanded the technology to desktop and changed the name to RapidEngage.
QuestionPro, which provides online survey software, says the acquisition will strengthen its offerings by integrating RapidEngage’s feedback technology, which encourages user engagement by connecting with website visitors.
RapidEngage is the eighth EvoNexus company to be acquired, according to a statement released early today.
Author: Bruce V. Bigelow
In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here.
Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University.
Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.
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