Yext, a local internet advertising company, has raised USD25m from Institutional Venture Partners and Sutter Hill Ventures to accelerate the growth of pay-per-action phone calls.
"We are excited to announce this investment and to have IVP as a new investor to help us build the company," says Howard Lerman, chief executive and co-founder of Yext. "We plan to aggressively grow the company and the technology so we can continue to provide the best local advertising experience on the web."
Yext employs several technologies to deliver local advertising. The company’s service, YextCalls, is the first system to send local advertisers pay-per-action phone calls. The technology understands consumer actions that occur on phone calls and charges local businesses only for relevant calls.
"We are confident that Yext will become a leader in local web-based advertising," says Dennis Phelps, general partner at IVP and Yext’s new board member. "Howard, Brian and Brent’s company has the potential to solve this huge problem by focusing on advertisers as users."
"Local advertising is very challenging, and the technology developed by Yext is significant," says Andy Sheehan, managing director at Sutter Hill Ventures and a Yext board member. "Yext delivers local advertising of exceptional quality to its customers, while also driving high yield on local search inventory for its publishing partners."
