SparkPost, an email sending and optimisation platform delivering nearly 40 per cent of the world’s commercial email, has secured USD180 million from LLR Partners, NewSpring Capital and PNC Bank.
The investment will help fuel SparkPost’s next stage of growth and product innovation as organisations continue to look at email as the channel to communicate and educate customers, and transact at scale in the years to come.
SparkPost’s focus on empowering the most sophisticated email senders globally has generated steady revenue growth within the last three years and substantially expanded its customer base, which includes companies like Zillow, The New York Times , Booking.com, Adobe, Rakuten, and Zynga.
“We achieved the Rule of 40 in the third quarter of 2020 and we continue to perform at this level into the new year. SparkPost’s strong results made this growth financing possible,” says Rich Harris, SparkPost’s CEO.
Covid-19 and the resulting recession drove many organisations to lean more into digital communications, and SparkPost was able to help customers scale email channel efforts while maintaining an unrivalled level of performance.
“Email has proven to be the most cost-effective and reliable marketing and customer engagement channel,” says David Reuter, Partner at LLR Partners. “Rich and the entire SparkPost team have built impressive momentum throughout 2020 and our investment will help support company growth and its position as a leader in the enterprise email marketing space. We are thrilled to be a part of their journey to help deliver tangible value and customer success to enterprises globally.”
“We are pleased to collaborate with both LLR Partners and NewSpring Capital on this transaction, and we look forward to broadening our relationship,” says David Mengel, Group Head of PNC Business Credit Technology Finance. “It has been exciting for us to work with SparkPost as they embark on a new chapter in their growth.”
“SparkPost has become the top provider of email sending and analytics to the enterprise by going above and beyond to meet our customer’s needs. We have developed industry leading technology and a massive data footprint, but our success really centres on our people and how we treat our customers and partners. Every industry was thrust into unprecedented business and environmental challenges in 2020 that forced a leap to digital-everything nearly overnight, and we were there to help them navigate this challenge” says Harris. “This additional investment represents the compelling value of email and its potential in the enterprise, and supports our plans for growth and innovation. We are so thankful for our amazing customers and partners, and very proud of the accomplishments and hard work of our team.”
