First online ventures In 2005, Michał Sadowski, Dawid Szymański, Piotr Wierzejewski, and Karol Wnukiewicz,
students of
computer science and management at the
Wrocław University of Science and Technology, launched a
social networking site Polatach.pl
Polish for:
After Years], a
platform for reconnecting with
old school friends (later outclassed by
Nasza Klasa). They also founded a
price comparison website Finansosfera.pl. Wierzejewski's idea led to the creation of Patrz.pl [Polish for:
Look!], a website enabling the
posting and playback of
short videos (similar to YouTube founded at the same time). By the end of 2007, with several million monthly users of Patrz.pl, the partners sold it for nearly
PLN 2 million to CR Media Consulting, which incorporated it to its
portal Pino.pl. From 2008, Sadowski, Wierzejewski, and Wnukiewicz took over management of Grupa Pino, operating a dozen of websites, including a
video-sharing site PinoTV, a
microblogging platform Moblo.pl, and a
slide-hosting site Slajdzik.pl. To monitor
user feedback on its websites, Grupa Pino used
Google Alerts, but its managers sought for a more comprehensive tool.
Turn to media monitoring In May 2007, CR Media Consulting
merged with Internet Group. The latter filed for bankruptcy in August 2010. Meanwhile, Sadowski, Wierzejewski, Wnukiewicz, and Szymański worked on a
proprietary solution to
collect and
synthesize data on brands, products, and services from all available
online searches. In the summer of 2011, the four partners launched a
prototype of a
monitoring tool named Brand24, acquired a 30-percent
stake in Brand24 the company. On September 12, 2011, it began selling the Brand24 system. By the end of the year, 62
customers were using it. According to a blogger, the tool stood out for its quality of
workmanship and
clear interface. The
social-listening technology of a young startup was already being adopted by
national media outlets and
researchers who analyzed
online brand presence, through
quantity and
quality of discussions about Poland's
supermarket chains, and
banks. In April 2012, an
angel investor of an
investment-fund group Altus acquired a 5% stake in Brand24 for PLN 200,000, valuing the startup at PLN 4 million. In 2013, its customer base exceeded 300. and in 2014, an updated version of the monitoring tool became available in the U.S. and Germany. In 2015, the global version of Brand24 was used in over 20 countries. It differed from the Polish, focused on the "
Polish Internet," in
parameters,
functions, and
data collection method. The
international version collected and stored data from across the internet. was a
brand strategy agency that ran
Michelle Obama office's
public-awareness campaign Better Make Room. In December 2015, the
investment fund Inovo invested PLN 1.4 million in Brand24, in exchange for a 5% stake,
valuing the company at PLN 28 million. In January 2016, Venture Inc. a
fund owned by the creators of
LiveChat, invested in an 11.5% stake in Brand24. Mariusz Ciepły, the CEO of
LiveChat Software (later rebranded to Text) joined Brand24's
supervisory board. In September 2017, of nearly 2,000 customers from 85 countries, 63 percent were from Poland. With PLN 5.38 million in
net revenue, the company reported a
net loss of PLN 389,000. On January 30, 2018, Brand24 debuted on the
NewConnect market. The company's
valuation exceeded PLN 90 million. It employed 60 people in five offices in Poland. the company
Facebook (later rebranded to Meta) changed its
data access policies for its social media platforms
Facebook and
Instagram, restricting
API access. Sadowski expressed Brand24's willingness to comply with the new rules. In August 2019, an article in the US edition of
Business Insider accused Brand24 of collecting
excessive amounts of data from
Instagram profiles for
internet monitoring, using Brand24's own
crawlers, in
violation of the Instagram's
terms and conditions. The article also discussed other companies, including
Cambridge Analytica, that potentially abused
Facebook's API by using
data scraping, as well as
automatic identification and data capture, for details officially unavailable including Instagram
avatars, user
locations,
passwords, and
ephemeral content of Instastories. Following the article's publication, Facebook the company preventively
blocked Brand24's accounts on Facebook and Instagram, as well as Sadowski's
private profiles, demanding confirmation of
compliance with the terms and conditions, and conducting an audit of its
sensitive data. Brand24 disabled
data monitoring from these services. Sadowski claimed on YouTube that this was a misunderstanding and that he was addressing the matter with Facebook representatives. saw its publicly listed share price drop, and
laid off more than a dozen of its 70-person staff. Brand24's revenue for 2019 reached PLN 13.37 million, a 14.6% decrease compared to 2018. By the end of 2019, the company had over 3,000 customers, over 50% of whom were international. To comply with Facebook's new, stricter policies, Brand24 changed its access only to public mentions via the official API.
Warsaw Stock Exchange In late 2019, Brand24 started monitoring
TikTok, and the gaming platform
Twitch. In January 2020, it started monitoring podcasts, and in May 2020,
newsletters. By the end of 2020, the company had broken even. On May 11, 2021, Brand24 debuted on the
main market of the Warsaw Stock Exchange. The company then launched tests of its
Custom Reports analytical service, which created reports based on data processed by its analytics department. These reports allowed for the
evaluation of
marketing campaigns and
comparison of
effectiveness with market
benchmarks and competitors. In 2021, the company launched the service as Insights24. In 2022, Brand24 launched a simplified version of its tool on the platform Semrush Marketplace. The company ended 2024 with consolidated
revenue of PLN 35.3 million.
Acquisition by Semrush In April 2024, controlling shares in Brand24 were acquired by a
media relations software provider Prowly, a Polish company owned by Brand24's American
business partner, a
marketing tool provider Semrush. The acquired team remained in place. Brand24's capitalization on the WSE was increased to PLN 110 million. Since 2024, Brand24 has been building a tool
Chatbeat, dedicated to measuring
brand visibility in
large language models, using data provided by Semrush. The two companies jointly launched a virtual
Brand Assistant that simplified and accelerated the analysis of data from selected brands and competitors, providing
consumer knowledge,
conclusions and
recommendations for further actions of global brands. As of October 2025, Brand24 monitored 100,000 brands, having collected 25 billion mentions to date. According to online advertising and marketing specialists, the tool was revolutionizing companies' approach to
online reputation management and stood out from other brand monitoring tools, especially in
data-driven marketing. In November 2025,
Adobe Inc. announced its agreement to acquire Semrush for $1.9 billion. == Technology ==