Glider, the Portland-based startup that makes a software-as-a-service product for streamlining and adding clarity to the process of negotiating and signing sales and business contracts, has been acquired by Dallas-based sales software company FPX.
Financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed, but it appears that this is not simply an acqui-hire or “soft landing” situation — the Glider product will continue to live on and grow as part of FPX.
Glider’s co-founder and CEO Eli Rubel wrote in a blog post announcing the deal that Glider’s four-person team has joined FPX, and will continue to work out of the company’s Portland office, as well as in Australia. There are plans for FPX to hire more staffers to work on the Glider product in the months ahead.
Glider, which was founded in 2012 while part of TechStars’ Seattle accelerator, has raised $1.4 million in seed funding. According to TechStars founder David Cohen, this is the 35th TechStars company to be acquired to date.
The M&A deal comes almost exactly after Glider’s launch at the Disrupt NY 2013 Startup Battlefield in April 2013. At that time, TechCrunch’s Alex Williams wrote of Glider:
“The service is meant to replace the massive ‘reply all’ email thread and the Excel spreadsheets that have dozens, and sometimes hundreds, of rows listing the tasks necessary to complete a deal. With Glider, companies can manage sales contracts, non-disclosure agreements, partnerships and any contractual process used by the organizations.”