Policy software company FiscalNote acquired DC’s FrontierView

In its tenth deal of the kind this year, software firm FiscalNote will be acquiring DC market intelligence firm FrontierView.

FiscalNote, the policy software and media company based in Penn Quarter, announced its latest acquisition Monday. FrontierView’s technology, which offers industry data and analytics tools, is used by over 250 companies worldwide, including Adidas, Cisco and Clorox. Terms were not disclosed, although it was noted that current CEO Richard Leggett will stay on to lead the company, as will its existing management team.

This news follows a formal announcement earlier this month that FiscalNote will be going public in 2022 following a merger with special purpose acquisition company Duddell Street Acquisition Corp. FiscalNote is estimated to be valued at $1.3 billion when the deal closes.

The FrontierView acquisition is also only the latest in a number of acquisitions by FiscalNote, which added nine companies to its portfolio this year. Among the deals that Technical.ly covered was when the company acquired fellow Penn Quarter company Fireside and Australia’s TimeBase in May, Factba.se parent company FactSquared in January and the UK’s Oxford Analytica in February. FiscalNote also raised $160 million in growth capital and debt financing in 2020.

CEO Tim Hwang told Technical.ly that this addition fits into the company’s strategy of making acquisitions that offer new product categories, industry areas and/or geographies.

“FrontierView, from our perspective, is just going to continue our strategy of really aggregating and finding intelligence assets as well as broaden the coverage of our information,” said Hwang, who will become the youngest Asian-American CEO on a major stock exchange platform in the US when the company goes public.

According to Hwang, FrontierView offered a focus on macroeconomic views, which is an asset to FiscalNote, as well as revenue streams from outside the US, particularly in Latin America and Asia. In making acquisitions, he added, FiscalNote looks for companies that can expand the scope of its content and information, and those that enhance said information and general software businesses.

“FrontierView really falls into that first category, where we’re just able to add some incremental dataset or new content area that gives us a broader set of coverage areas or areas of interest, with respect to the industries,” Hwang said.

Looking ahead, the FrontierView acquisition is a signal of FiscalNote’s plans for 2022: growth. But, Hwang said, the company will be taking a step back and looking at additional policy and issue areas and how those comes into play with future product launches and acquisitions. On top of geographic expansion, this could include anything from cryptocurrencies to ESG-centered companies, or even autonomous and electric vehicles.

Overall, Hwang said, more acquisitions are still front-of-mind as the company makes plans following the public offering.

“[The FrontierView deal] pretty much reinforces the strategy that we have around continuous acquisitions, and I think that we’re effectively reaffirming our guidance for the end of the year,” Hwang said.