Harbottle & Lewis has advised social intelligence company Brandwatch on its USD33 million Series C financing led by new investor Partech Ventures, with participation from existing investors Highland Europe and Nauta Capital.
Partech’s investment follows previous Series A and B rounds of USD6m and USD22m led respectively by Nauta and Highland, both in relation to which Harbottle & Lewis previously advised.
Brandwatch’s continued growth demonstrates the strong appetite organizations have for a best of breed social analytics platform as social networks have evolved into a critical source of consumer and business insight. The funding will be used to accelerate development of the company’s core technologies and products to keep setting the standard in an increasingly complex, global social landscape.
Building on its strong US presence, which now accounts for more than half of the company’s revenues, Brandwatch will open more offices following the June 2015 launch in Singapore. The company also plans to invest heavily in strategic partnerships with other best-of-breed products to offer customers integrated social intelligence solutions.
Recently, Brandwatch has added new brands to its 1,200-strong roster of customers – including Samsung, Cisco Systems, and Sony Music – and it is now one of the largest VC-backed SaaS companies in Europe.
In 2015, the company launched the most sophisticated automated intelligence alerts on the market, Brandwatch Signals, which notifies users in real time of significant or unexpected changes in their social data.
Commenting on the deal, Tony Littner, Partner and Head of the firm’s Venture Capital Group, says “We have been advising Brandwatch for 10 years now ever since it was a pure startup and were delighted to be able to support them again on reaching their latest big milestone. We are very proud to have been part of their exciting journey”.
On working with Harbottle & Lewis, Giles Palmer, Brandwatch CEO said “Tony Littner put together our first shareholder documents almost 10 years ago. The current set of documents we have are clearly a lot more complex, but we still trust him and his team to represent us and get the right deal for the company. Harbottle & Lewis are an important partner for us and we know they have our backs”.
The Harbottle & Lewis team that worked on the transaction was led by Tony Littner with assistance from associate Felix Wong.
