Kolsquare, a French influencer marketing platform owned by the European digital services group team.blue, acquired Storyclash, an influencer marketing and analytics company based in Linz, Austria. The deal was announced on 20 January 2026.
Neither company disclosed the price or other terms. Storyclash's team of more than 50 employees and its Linz office are being kept in full, and the Storyclash brand continues; its website now carries the label "by Kolsquare".
Founders Andreas Gutzelnig, Storyclash's chief executive, and Philip Penner remain in operational roles. Gutzelnig told Trending Topics that the integration of the two teams was going well. OnlineMarketing.de reported that Storyclash customers and partners should see no change, while the range of services and support grows.
What Storyclash built
Storyclash was founded in Linz in 2016 by Penner and Gutzelnig, with the aim of making creator marketing measurable. It started in social media analytics and content tracking, and in 2021 repositioned itself as an influencer marketing platform.
Its software covers creator discovery, campaign analytics and audience data, including tracking of Instagram Stories and analysis of creators on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. Its main market is the DACH region of Germany, Austria and Switzerland, where its customers are direct-to-consumer brands and agencies. They use the data to find creators, run campaigns and measure results.
The company told Trending Topics that it had grown profitably and had more than 50 employees in 2025, but said it does not publish revenue or other financial figures. Coverage of the deal did not report any outside funding. The Linz team will continue to serve the DACH market under the Storyclash name, now as part of Kolsquare's group.
“Die Akquisition ist klar als Wachstumsprojekt angelegt, nicht als Kostenoptimierung.”
Why Kolsquare is buying
Kolsquare, founded by Quentin Bordage, connects brands with creators and manages the running of campaigns. Buying Storyclash strengthens its position in the DACH market and brings in a team with long experience in AI and data, according to Trending Topics.
Bordage is also a co-founder of the European Influencer Marketing Association and sits on the executive committee of UMICC, the French influencer marketing trade body, where he is vice president of its ethics committee. Gutzelnig said Storyclash's early investment in AI had been one of the reasons for its success.
The two companies had competed for years and stayed in regular contact. Gutzelnig said there had been no active search for a buyer and called the sale a deliberate choice for Storyclash's next stage. He said the acquisition was set up as a growth project, not a cost-cutting exercise ("Die Akquisition ist klar als Wachstumsprojekt angelegt, nicht als Kostenoptimierung").
Together the companies say they work with more than 2,000 brands, organisations and agencies. They plan to build a single platform and present it as a European option built around transparency, GDPR compliance and technological sovereignty.
Part of team.blue's buying run
Kolsquare joined team.blue in October 2024. Storyclash is its third acquisition since then, after Woomio, which serves the Nordic market, and Inflead, according to WebHosting.Today.
team.blue, which is backed by Hg and serves about 3.3 million small business customers in 22 countries, completed 11 software-as-a-service acquisitions in 2025. On the same day as the Storyclash deal it announced the purchase of Windsor.ai, a Swiss marketing data integration platform. The group was valued at €4.8 billion (about $5.6 billion) after a transaction with CPP Investments in late 2024.
Windsor.ai, founded in 2017 by Niklas Kolster, connects more than 325 data sources to over 15 destinations through no-code connectors and says it serves more than 5,000 customers in 120 countries. team.blue made a further software purchase, Saleskit, in March 2026.
team.blue chief executive Claudio Corbetta has said that digital presence alone is no longer enough for small businesses, and that the group is building tools that combine generative AI, automation, data and compliance.
