BrightEdge Secures $42.8 Million Invesment to Build Essential Content Marketing Platform for Modern Business
SAN MATEO, CA – BrightEdge today announced that it has closed $42.8 million in Series D funding, led by Insight Venture Partners. Insight Venture Partners joins existing investors Intel Capital, Battery Ventures, Altos Ventures and Illuminate Ventures. The investment serves as a strong endorsement of the company’s vision to create a new standard for how modern businesses of every size and industry understand and measure the value of their content marketing strategies across all digital channels.
In the new world of marketing, where brands are publishers, consumers are influencers and content is created, shared and accessed at quantum scale, marketers must think like scientists more than artists. And while many vendors focus on back-office systems to automate marketing workflows and process, marketers still fly blind when it comes to actually measuring and understanding the value of their content for all of the sites on which they publish.
BrightEdge’s S3 platform harnesses big data analytics so businesses understand the revenue impact of earned content, attract customers from the billions of searches happening each day and understand impact created by web sites, search engines and social networks in a measurable, predictable way. It processes massive volumes of data and systematically analyzes content across every channel in real-time, stitching together individual interactions to allow businesses to understand the value of their content in terms of traffic, engagement and revenue. Its customized dashboards, targeted recommendations and strategic analysis empower marketers to focus their efforts and implement initiatives that drive maximum business impact.
"Marketing today doesn’t have a go-to platform like IT, finance and HR. That’s changing and BrightEdge is front and center as a company with a massive value proposition,” said Brad Twohig, principal, Insight Venture Partners. “BrightEdge has the opportunity to become marketing’s must-have platform and we are excited to invest in the company and their success. This is a transformative opportunity within a $12 billion interactive marketing arena that doesn’t yet have a standard.”
BrightEdge has experienced tremendous growth since its inception in 2007. Major milestones over the past 12 months include:
Continued, Rapid Customer Growth: The company has added more than 300 direct clients in the past 12 months, including SuccessFactors, SurveyMonkey and Choice Hotels International, Inc. Today, more than 6,000 brands and 600 direct clients leverage BrightEdge, including Microsoft, 3M, Nike, Marriott and Performics.
An Enterprise Standard: Since commencing commercial operations in 2010, the company has grown to dominate its category, serving 9 of the top 10 largest hotel groups, 7 of the top 10 online retailers and 7 of the top 10 largest technology companies.
Record-Breaking Business Performance: BrightEdge has seen a 110-percent customer renewal rate and 300-percent brand growth over the past 12 months, best-in-class across SaaS vendors in both public and private arenas. In addition the company saw a 200-percent return on capital in revenue run rate in FY2012.
Patented Technology: BrightEdge has defined the market with dozens of innovations, included issued patents for Share of Voice to help marketers understand true market share and beat their competitors online, and a Reverse Index which helps marketers understand their web wide performance. An additional 26 innovations have patents pending.
“Marketing has never been more data-driven or outcome-focused, and now, strategies backed by science and measurement are modern business essentials. We’ve built the first platform to bring sophisticated analysis to the consumer-facing part of marketing across all digital channels – and major global brands are already realizing transformative results in traffic, engagement and revenue,” said Jim Yu, founder and CEO, BrightEdge. “Our massive growth, customer impact and this newest round of financing validate that we're well on our way to disrupting a $12 billion market and creating a new standard for marketers and modern businesses worldwide.”
About BrightEdge
BrightEdge is the essential content marketing platform for modern business. It transforms online content into tangible business results such as traffic, revenue and engagement. BrightEdge’s S3 platform is powered by a sophisticated big data analysis engine and is the only company capable of web-wide, real-time measurement of content engagement across all digital channels, including search, social and mobile. BrightEdge 600+ customers include global brands such as 3M, Microsoft, Netflix and Nike. The company is based in San Mateo, CA with offices in New York City and London.
