App developer Gigabud acquires lead generation startup SocialAgent

Gigabud, a Shenzhen-based app developer, is acquiring lead generation startup SocialAgent, Tech in Asia learned today.

Gigabud develops and runs a broad portfolio of internationally-targeted apps under its western brand name Unchained Apps. Those include a series of Chinese language-learning apps as well as some productivity tools and games. SocialAgent is a marketplace for businesses to find and hire to sales agents.

Gigabud has been around for half a decade, but it and most of its app portfolio have largely flown under the radar in part due to lack of marketing. It hopes to fill this gap by acquihiring SocialAgent founder Michael Michelini, who has more or less been running his startup as a one-man show with some outside help from part-timers.

“We’ve spent all this time building all these products but haven’t been able to push them to market,” says Gigabud’s creative director Nora Joy Wilson. She says Michelini brings to the table “everything that we were lacking in terms of marketing.”

Indeed, Gigabud seems like it could use the help. A Google search for the company brings up a number of articles about a popular strain of marijuana by the same name.

Michelini didn’t disclose how much he sold his company for, but says he will continue actively developing SocialAgent in addition to his new marketing duties. He says SocialAgent struggled with the shift to mobile, so the acquisition is mutally beneficial.

Social Agent particiated in Tech in Asia‘s own Startup Arena pitch competition at Startup Asia Singapore 2013.

You can check out some of Gigabud’s flagship Chinese learning apps here for Android and here for iOS.