Social marketing software provider Spredfast has raised USD18m in venture capital, led by OpenView Venture Partners with follow-on investment participation from existing investors Austin Ventures and InterWest Partners.
The funding comes as Spredfast reports 400 per cent revenue growth and a doubling in employee headcount in 2012. The company plans to use the capital to fuel continued investment in its technology platform and to grow the team to support increased adoption of its social marketing platform.
Spredfast works with many of the world’s top companies and agencies to help them monitor, coordinate and measure social media with one robust platform.
"For the past few years we have been tracking the social media management space and believe the market is at an inflection point. Companies are no longer concerned with Likes, but rather with building real customer engagement and value across their social networks," says Adam Marcus, managing director at OpenView Venture Partners. "We believe Spredfast has built the only true enterprise-class product to help the Fortune 1000 manage this incredibly important channel. We couldn’t be happier to partner with this tremendous team to build a category-defining company."
"Social is rapidly becoming the preferred interaction mechanism for consumers and business people alike. The time is fast approaching when your customers will no longer email or call you — they will send out a signal via social and expect a thoughtful response. They’ll expect you to know about them and for you to offer them something of value for their attention," says Rod Favaron, chief executive of Spredfast. "Spredfast’s customers understand the strategic advantage of laying the technical and organisational foundation for this future now, working with a trusted partner whose entire focus is social."
