Social media management software firm Buddy Media has raised $54 million in Series D funding from a group of leading late-stage investors.
The capital will be used to more than double its product, sales and support staff in the next year as well as fund additional global offices and acquisitions.
Current Buddy Media investors GGV Capital, Institutional Venture Partners and Bay Partners, as well as new investor Insight Venture Partners participated in the round.
GGV partner, Jeff Richards, led the round and has joined the Buddy Media Board of Directors.
The investors each bring a wealth of knowledge and proven success to Buddy Media. GGV’s portfolio includes Pandora, SuccessFactors and Alibaba Group.
Institutional Venture Partners has funded 300 companies since its inception, including Twitter and Zynga in the social space. Insight Venture Partners, investing from their recently raised $1.5bn fund, has other social media investments in companies like 6waves LOLapps, Flipboard and Twitter.
And Bay Partners has had over 250 successful exits (IPOs or $250M+ acquisitions) over 35 years and have been investing around open social graph APIs since 2007.
“Buddy Media is at the center of the largest two-way communications revolution that the world has ever seen,” said Michael Lazerow, CEO and Founder, Buddy Media. “Our new funding ensures we have the resources necessary to accelerate the growth of our large, fast-growing software business. I am truly ecstatic to be working with such an amazing group of investors, and believe it’s a testament to our success thus far.”
The latest investment comes on the heels of massive growth and expansion for Buddy Media, including the following milestones:
The company has added close to 200 new customers in 2011, including some of the world’s most recognizable global brands, retailers and media companies such as Ford Motor Company, Hanes, ESPN, Hearst Corporation, and Virgin Mobile USA.
Buddy Media’s technology is web-based (SaaS) software that provides companies global scale, secure architecture and straightforward administrative tools to connect with their current and future customers using the power of social media.
“Buddy Media has a proven management team, sustained revenue growth and a massive market opportunity. The company is the market leader in a category that sits at the intersection of social media and software-as-a-service (SaaS), two of the largest and fastest growing markets in the technology industry,” said GGV’s Jeff Richards. “We are very excited to continue to support the company’s rapid expansion in the US and globally. Buddy Media has more than proved itself in terms of building the best team and product in the business. The numbers speak for themselves and I can’t be more excited to work with the entire team.”
“I have known the Buddy Media team for more than two years and have been very impressed with their ability to build innovative products that surpass those offered by others,” said Deven Parekh, managing director at Insight, who will be a Buddy Media board observer. “The company has a compelling vision to serve the social media needs of companies and I’ve witnessed first hand their ability to execute and achieve their goals.”
In conjunction with the announcement, Buddy Media has also announced that Kevin Colleran has joined its board of advisors and Michael Kassan has been named special advisor to CEO Michael Lazerow.
Colleran previously served as Facebook’s first advertising sales executive, and was the company’s longest tenured employee outside of founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Kassan is an internationally recognized business strategist, and currently serves as Chairman and CEO of Medialink, LLC, the leading advisory and business development firm.
http://www.buddymedia.com.