Funding Led by FTV Capital Will Help Platform Expand Its People-Based Marketing Capabilities
New York City – September 2, 2015 – NewsCred, the leading content marketing software company, today announced it has raised $42 million in growth equity funding to aggressively scale its global operations as the company serves the incredible demand for content marketing from enterprise brands. The round was led by FTV Capital followed by existing investors FirstMark Capital, InterWest Partners, and Mayfield Fund. Additionally, Liron Gitig, partner at FTV Capital, has joined NewsCred’s board of directors.
In the last year, NewsCred’s business has grown tremendously with annual recurring revenue growing 3x and its customer base growing 2x. In addition, the Fortune 2000 now represent 40% of NewsCred’s customer base as the company serves enterprise brands in more than 70 global markets, including, ASICS, Barclays, Capgemini, Cisco, ConAgra Foods, Conair, Dell, Fidelity, Hewlett Packard, Nasdaq, Pepsi, Schneider Electric, Toyota, USAA, Visa, and more. Additionally, 72% of NewsCred customers expanded their products and services in the last year. The company is now 200 people across seven global offices including New York City, London, and Dhaka.
“The goal of marketers has been the same since the very beginning: to tell their brand’s story. But the current marketing playbook – traditional media buys and banner ads – is outdated and underperforming. Marketing has become noisy, ineffective, and focused primarily on bombarding people with messages that they didn’t ask for,” said Shafqat Islam, NewsCred’s co-founder and chief executive officer. “Moreover, we all know that the growth of digital and mobile has made the landscape increasingly complex. Marketers are tasked with scaling content across global teams, geographies, and more than 40 marketing channels: websites, email, social, TV, and more. Content has become the fuel of the modern marketing engine, and increasingly, it is the defining factor that sets the world’s most loved brands apart from the rest. For marketers to succeed today, they need a single platform to easily orchestrate all of their efforts across every channel. At NewsCred, we’re fiercely dedicated to making this a reality. We’re on a mission to make marketing better for everyone.”
NewsCred helps marketers power the entire customer experience across every channel of the marketing stack:
- Marketing Operations: NewsCred provides software to help global enterprise brands easily manage content creation, distribution, and measurement – across channels, teams, and global markets – all through a single platform.
- Content: NewsCred has built the world’s largest content marketplace, enabling brands to scale their marketing with original, licensed, and user-generated content. It is the only company in the world with these capabilities.
- Insights: NewsCred has closed the loop on marketing insights, providing deep content, social and audience analytics to power the entire customer experience. NewsCred’s content marketing software allows marketers and brands to see precisely who is interacting with their content and their competitors’ – no guess work or personas required. NewsCred is the only content marketing software that helps marketers truly understand their audience and prove content marketing ROI.
“In today’s competitive market, companies continue to search for ways to acquire and engage customers, as well as grow profits — advanced marketing platforms are turning cost centers into revenue drivers. At FTV, we know the digital solutions offered today are just the beginning and CMOs are demanding more. We hear this constantly from the strategic enterprises in our Global Partner Network,” said Liron Gitig, partner, FTV Capital. “The marketing landscape is converging and content is at the core. Quality content is crucial for building brands and driving sales. Today, customers engage with about a dozen items of content before making a purchase, NewsCred provides the best solution and has already taken great strides at redefining how the modern marketer can successfully navigate the complexities in this rapidly evolving space. In NewsCred, we see not only a passionate and sophisticated management team, but also an enterprise solution that the market absolutely needs.”
NewsCred most recently raised a $25 million Series C round in January 2014.
About NewsCred
NewsCred is on a mission to make marketing better for everyone. As the leading content marketing software, NewsCred provides the world’s most ambitious brands – Pepsi, Visa, Dell, ConAgra, Hewlett Packard, and more – with the best solutions in content creation, marketing management, cross-channel publishing, and measurement. Everyday, marketers rely on NewsCred to orchestrate their marketing across channels, collaborate with global teams, build brand awareness, and drive sales.
NewsCred is rewriting the rules of marketing, fueling a new way for marketers to share their stories with the world. Founded in 2008, NewsCred employs 200 people in seven global offices, serving customers in over 70 countries. Learn more at newscred.com and follow us on Twitter @newscred.
About FTV Capital
FTV Capital is a growth equity investment firm that has raised over $1.8 billion since inception to invest in high-growth companies offering a range of innovative solutions in three sectors: enterprise solutions, financial services, and payments/transaction processing. FTV’s experienced team leverages its domain expertise and proven track record in each of these sectors to help motivated management teams accelerate growth. FTV also provides companies with access to its Global Partner Network, a group of the world’s leading enterprises and executives who have helped FTV portfolio companies for more than a decade. Founded in 1998, FTV Capital has invested in 87 portfolio companies, including companies in the marketing ecosystem such as LiveIntent, MarketShare, Shoutlet (acquired by Spredfast), Centro, Covario (acquired by Dentsu Aegis), Coremetrics (acquired by IBM), and GMI (acquired by WPP). FTV has offices in San Francisco and New York. For more information, please visit ftvcapital.com.
Contacts
Karen Derr Gilbert
FTV CAPITAL
(415) 229-3044
kgilbert@ftvcapital.com