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VTEX, a company credited for commercializing Software- as- a- Service (SaaS (News - Alert)) in Brazil, is picking up a stake in Buenos Aires, Argentina- based social marketing platform, The Fan Machine. 

The Fan Machine is a cloud social marketing platform offering a portfolio of solutions that enables companies to run promotions and contests on Facebook (News - Alert). Agencies and advertisers can leverage the Fan Machine platform to increase the number of their fans in social networks making it easier to get more fans in Facebook through the use of easy-to-install applications, which require no technical knowledge to be used. In May 2011, the system was selected by Facebook as the first preferred developer consultant in Latin America.

According to a press release, a beta version of The Fan Machine was launched in Brazil a month ago and already has lots of users. The company plans to set up a business in the country by Q2. Currently, more than 2000 agencies and brands are using social marketing platform to run their promotions and contests on Facebook. American Express (News - Alert), Cencosud, Turner Broadcasting, and many other e-commerce sites and small business are in the client list of Fan Machine. The multilingual platform currently supports Portuguese, Spanish, and English languages, with seven new languages to be supported the next months.

According to Mariano Gomide de Faria, VTEX's CEO, the acquisition has the purpose of expanding VTEX services. He states, "The Fan Machine cloud social marketing platform working alongside VTEX business model will add more value to our applications." VTEX believes that the social commerce real power has not been explored in full yet and has been compelled to bet in this market.

The Fan Machine CEO, Anton Chalbaud, considers Brazil a very important market for his company due to its fast-pace growth. He adds, "As Brazil has a huge and powerful market, where the social networks' have a big influence, it's certainly a perfect place for our company to grow in."

As a result, VTEX and The Fan Machine joint forces in order to work together with strong projects to continue its growth in the near future.