Maven Capital Partners (Maven) has led a GBP1.75 million investment into marketing technology company, Leaf.fm Ltd (Leaf).
The performance marketing services provider secured GBP1 million through the North East Development Fund, supported by the European Regional Development, and GBP750,000 through The Future Fund, a government scheme backed by the British Business Bank. Funding will enable Leaf to invest in its engineering and data science teams, sales & marketing activities and expand its Newcastle operations to deliver on its ambitious expansion plans, whilst continuing to roll out a number of exciting product enhancements.
Newcastle-based Leaf is a technology company that provides end-to-end performance marketing services for ambitious and fast-growing eCommerce businesses looking to scale revenue growth from paid social. Its team of software engineers, data scientists and marketing strategists combine years of data-marketing expertise with proprietary technology (Leaf Grow) to drive unrivalled return on ad spend, for its clients.
By utilising a range of real-time conversion rate signals from client websites, the Leaf Grow platform enables Leaf’s Marketing Engineers to enhance Facebook audience targeting and optimisation, to drive efficiencies on ad spend and improvement in performance, across the entire customer journey, from ad click to purchase.
The business already boasts an impressive client list of blue-chip names and businesses across a number of sectors. These include GoCompare, Footasylum, Mastercard and Bibado.
Founded in 2014 and backed by a strong management team with a range of technical and commercial expertise. CEO Gilbert Corrales has over 15 years of experience in software engineering working for New Futuro, Intel and AvVenta Worldwide. Corrales and the team have been instrumental in building the concept, designing the product, and delivering the rapid growth experienced to date.
The addressable market for social media advertising and eCommerce is large and growing with social media users, online sales penetration and the number of online businesses continuing to grow exponentially. The global online advertising market is expected to reach USD982 billion by 2025 and Leaf is well placed to capitalise on this forecasted growth.
Peter Smith, Investment Associate at Maven, says: “The social ad space is constantly evolving, and organisations must remain dynamic to ensure more than ever that they are engaging customers and creating bespoke experiences to satisfy those customers. Leaf is helping businesses cost-effectively acquire and retain high-value customers in what is an increasingly competitive environment. Gilbert has built an impressive business and we are delighted to support the business as it enters an exciting new phase of growth.”
Corrales says: “Leaf has grown significantly in the last two years with very little capital investment. The whole team is excited about what we will achieve with the additional backing from investors and we are really pleased to welcome Maven as part of this round. It is an exciting time for us, and we are experiencing very strong commercial traction from clients all over the globe.”
