Netcentives Acquires Panttaja Consulting Group

Netcentives Inc. in San Francisco, a developer of promotional and direct marketing programs, is acquiring database and systems integrator Panttaja Consulting Group Inc. (PCGi), also in San Francisco.

Financial details were not disclosed.

The additional engineering talent being acquired will support the company’s expansion into custom loyalty programs for major brands and portals, said Netcentives, known for its ClickRewards program, said.

“Netcentives is broadening its scope of services to support the rapid growth of the e-commerce market,” said West Shell, president and chief executive officer of Netcentives.

The acquisition doubles Netcentives’ research and development team and provides the company with an established revenue stream from Panttaja’s nine- year-old consulting business.

“In the digital economy, maximizing customer relationships is as much an engineering challenge as it is a marketing challenge,” Shell said.

Panttaja Consulting works as a software integrator for its clients, and offers services from object and database modeling to full application development. Clients have included AT&T, Actel Communications, The Federal Reserve, The San Francisco Opera, Chase Bank, Tandem and Netcentives.

PCGi founder, Mary Panttaja will join Netcentives executive team as vice- president, program management and development; Jim Pattaja becomes vice president of database engineering/systems architect and George Loyer becomes director of Netcentives Professional Services.

Netcentives’ flagship program is ClickRewards, which provides frequent flyer miles from various airlines to member customers.