NewsSugarCRM Acquires CRM and Open Source Startup Stitch

With the aim to up its game on mobile, SugarCRM has acquired San Francisco-based Stitch. Stitch was founded by ex-executives of Salesforce, which is a CRM and open-source competitor of Stitch, and offered its clients a mobile platform and an iOS application to track and pursue sales leads.

While there is no official word on the sale or the buyer from Stitch, the company issued a notice to its users which stated that on March 6, the service would close down “in its current form”. SugarCRM will acquire talent and technology from Switch. The company will absorb most of the team at Stitch and will use Stitch’s San Francisco office premises as its city office. Stitch CEO Somrat Niyogi, who co-founded the firm with Wiebke Poerschke and Jason McDowall, will now be an advisor at SugarCRM.

Stitch does not only work towards smart grouping, sieving through and providing analytics on email and other cloud-based documents for sales reps on the move. It is also attempting to apply intelligent algorithms and big data to unearth better opportunities for users and increase efficiencies. With the acquisition, SugarCRM, initially built around open source, will be able to further commercialize its services. It will also be able to enhance its mobile app, on offer to customers since 2013, but limited to allowing them to work with their existing databases.

The huge number of players in the field and consolidation in the space prompted Stitch to sell out to a big name rather than grow by itself.