Sprinklr's first servers sat in the basement of its founder's home. Ragy Thomas, a marketing technology executive, paid for the company himself in 2009. He named it after a garden sprinkler, an image of a brand tending its social media presence with care. Early customers included Cisco, Dell, and Virgin America. By the time Sprinklr filed to go public in 2021, big companies were trying to answer customers on dozens of social channels at once.

Buy the Tool, Rebuild It

Thomas had worked at the email marketing company Bigfoot International before starting Sprinklr. The company grew from social posting into ads, listening, and customer care. It bought smaller firms like Dachis Group, TBG Digital, and Get Satisfaction. Then it did something unusual. It retired the tools it bought and had the acquired teams rebuild them inside Sprinklr's own platform. By 2018 it had more than 1,500 customers.

Sixteen Dollars on the NYSE

Sprinklr priced 16.6 million shares at $16 each and began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on June 23, 2021. It raised about $266 million, at a value of roughly $4 billion. Its ticker, CXM, stood for customer experience management. In November 2024 Rory Read became CEO, and Thomas moved to an advisory role as chairman. Sprinklr still trades on the NYSE as CXM.

Cover: Woman Filling Water-Cans, Pierre Millet. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for filling watering cans (a brand tending its garden).