Dachis Group Expands Internationally Acquiring Headshift, Ltd.

Investment Creates International Firm Providing Scale and Reach to Service Global Clients


AUSTIN, TX--(Marketwire - September 2, 2009) - Dachis Group announced today the acquisition of London-based Headshift, Ltd., forming an international firm with offices servicing clients in the United States, Europe and the Asia/Pacific region.

The acquisition provides Dachis Group the ability to meet increasing demand for larger and more complex engagements with global companies striving to create value through the use of social technologies in order to better engage their customers, foster more efficient workforce collaboration, and enhance and optimize business partner relationships.

"It is time for companies to move beyond the hype and toward delivering concrete, sustainable, and measurable value from their social media activities," said Livio Hughes, Co-founder and Director at Headshift. "This combination affords us the scale and talent to leverage the financial benefits associated with connecting customers, workforce and business partners for our clients."

"When I first saw the announcement that Jeffrey Dachis was building a company in this space, my ears perked up as his unique mix of experience, effectiveness, and ability to sell change is precisely what is needed to help take the emerging field of social business design to the next level and to go mainstream within the enterprise," said Lee Bryant, Headshift's Co-founder and Director.

"In this economic climate, the way we do business is changing. Technological, social, and commercial advances have created a new trajectory for the growth and development of large global businesses," said Jeffrey Dachis, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Dachis Group. "These trends represent a need for a shift toward distributed, collaborative, and agile organizations that will derive concrete commercial benefit from the evolving social fabric of the Internet." Added Dachis, "This is a meaningful first step in creating our global footprint. I am delighted to be able to work with Lee Bryant and his team. The combination of Headshift's strategy and technology resources add directly to our already strong and growing talent base."

The combined company will have offices in London, England; Sydney, Australia; and Austin, Texas in North America.

About Headshift

Headshift is Europe's leading social business consultancy helping organizations use smarter, simpler, social technologies to improve business performance, communication, and customer engagement. With offices in the United Kingdom and Sydney, Australia, Headshift provides consulting and advisory support to organizations exploring social technology, and implementation work ranging from bespoke development to integration and customization of social platforms and tools.

Headshift's diverse, international team is based in London, but also operates in other key European and Asia/Pacific world markets to serve the needs of both global and local organizations.

Headshift's client relationships include extensive work in: professional and legal services, consumer products, media and publishing, health care, and government verticals as well as global companies including AXA, British Petroleum, and the BBC.

About Dachis Group

Founded in 2008 by Jeffrey Dachis, Dachis Group (Dachis Corporation, Inc.) was created to unlock the value of social technologies for large corporate enterprises through its Social Business Design global advisory practice and technology implementation program. The company's strategy is backed by a commitment from Austin Ventures to build and grow organically and through acquisitions.

Among the global enterprise client verticals Dachis Group serves are: software, semiconductors, information services, global restaurant services, consumer products, media and publishing, health care, and financial services with clients including: Philips Healthcare, Coca-Cola, Intuit, and Yum! Brands.

Now founder and CEO of Dachis Group, Dachis' leadership and vision helped establish the digital services industry more than 15 years ago when he co-founded Razorfish. As the Razorfish CEO, President, and Chairman, he grew the company into one of the world's largest digital solutions providers and led the company to win numerous performance, design, and professional service awards. Razorfish was part of Microsoft's $6 billion purchase of aQuantive, and was most recently spun out from Microsoft and sold to Publicis for $530 million.

About Austin Ventures

Austin Ventures ("AV") has worked with talented entrepreneurs to build valuable companies for nearly twenty-five years. With $3.9 billion under management, AV is the most active venture capital and growth equity firm in Texas and one of the most established in the nation. With an investment focus on: business services and supply chain; financial services; media and information services; software and Internet; and Texas special situations, AV invests at all stages of company development, from $100,000 in "planned experiments" in early stage ideas to $100+ million investments in expansion rounds, minority recapitalizations, and buyouts of lower middle market growth companies. AV's strategy is to partner with talented executives and entrepreneurs through its CEO-in-Residence and Entrepreneur-in-Residence programs.

For information on how to engage Dachis Group to help your company: socialbusinessdesign@dachisgroup.com

Dachis group is always looking for the most talented professionals: opportunities@dachisgroup.com

Contact Information: For more information contact: Dachis Group Jeffrey Dachis http://www.dachisgroup.com +1 512 485 1977 Headshift Lee Bryant http://www.headshift.com +44(0)20 7357 7358