We have some great news for Sideqik customers. Today we’re excited to announce our $5m Series A investment from Jackson Square Ventures, Tom Noonan, and Fuqua Capital.
Sideqik will use this capital to enable every brand to more effectively engage with their customers and build meaningful relationships with the influencers their customers trust.
The official press release is below, but I wanted to add additional commentary for context:
Why Social Engagement and Influencer Marketing?
It’s all about where the attention of consumers is going. Over the last few years, we’ve seen people increasingly shift their focus from traditional media to online, mobile, and social. There’s also no shortage of data — marketers and CMOs are swimming in data, but how do you make sense of all of that data? How do you use it to better understand your customers and the people they trust, what those people are saying about you, your competition, and your market? How do you build meaningful relationships, and do that in a way that grows your business?
We’re experiencing a pivotal shift in how brands engage with their customers, and how consumers become aware of brands and choose the products they purchase. In order for brands to stay relevant, they need to have an understanding of their customers and find new ways to connect and engage with them. We’ve also seen the rise of content creators and social influencers, with millions of livestreams, blogs, video channels, and social channels being created, many of which with massive followings. It’s impossible to imagine a world where these online channels are less important or less prevalent in the future.
New Innovation is Needed
Sideqik has been rapidly innovating our marketing platform, with hundreds of releases in the past year. Today our customers can use our AI-driven platform to search through millions of influencers around the world to find the best people, manage those relationships in one central location, run campaigns that drive sales, coupon code distribution, UGC, or customer engagement — and most importantly, measure the impact that all of this effort has on their business.
With this new round of financing, we will continue to build out our AI and predictive capabilities, and out-deliver other companies in our space to provide the best technology and the best experience for all of our customers.
Why Did We Choose These Investors?
The investment is led by Jackson Square Ventures — who has an amazing track record — investing in companies including Demandbase, DocuSign, OfferUp, Responsys, Strava, and Upwork. They both understand how to build top-tier technology companies, as well as have a firm understanding of the challenges that consumer businesses face in adapting to the changing media landscape.
We also added new investor Tom Noonan, who serves on the board of the NYSE, Manhattan Associates, and ICE, and who has helped build many technology companies including Internet Security Systems — as well as Fuqua Capital who has been a great partner for us over the past year.
Thank You
I’m so excited about the role we’re playing in how brands connect with their customers. Sideqik isn’t any one person’s idea, but the culmination of all of the feedback we get from our amazing customers and the hard work and dedication of our incredible team.
We will continue to listen, and continue to deliver innovative products to help you engage with your customers in authentic, meaningful ways.
With heartfelt thanks,
Jeremy
Press Release:
Sideqik Raises $5 Million Series A To Drive Innovation In Influencer Marketing Platform
Coca-Cola, Universal Music, Virgin Voyages, Under Armour, Procter & Gamble among Brands Leveraging AI-Powered Influencer Marketing and Engagement Platform
ATLANTA, Feb. 25, 2019 – Sideqik, the influencer marketing and social engagement platform whose mission is to help brands authentically engage with their customers and the people they trust, today announced it has raised $5 million in its Series A round, bringing their total funding to $6.5 million. Jackson Square Ventures led the round with participation from Fuqua Capital, Tom Noonan – founder of Internet Security Systems and director for ICE/NYSE and Manhattan Associates – and continued support from their lead pre-Seed investors Bee Partners and Bonfire Ventures.
The company has emerged as a leader in the social engagement and influencer marketing categories, with sales growing nearly 900 percent in the past two years alone. Their innovations around using artificial intelligence (A.I.) to power marketing insights and engagement led to them recently being named as one of the 10 Most Innovative Companies by the Technology Association of Georgia. These accolades are due to the company’s focus on using technology to help customers understand who is influencing their brand, competition, and market, using those insights to build authentic relationships with their customers and influencers, and measuring the impact and ROI of those efforts.
“Marketers today are overwhelmed by the amount of data at their disposal,” says Jeremy Haile, Co-Founder and CEO, Sideqik. “The challenge is using that data to make decisions and improving how they engage with their customers and the influencers that speak to them. As consumer attention shifts more and more to mobile and social, it’s increasingly important that brands are able to engage with them there, and it’s our mission to provide an innovative platform that helps them do that in an intelligent, authentic, and measurable way.”
Looking to the future, Sideqik will continue innovating through its products by using its AI-driven intelligence to help brands better understand their market, competition, and consumers — informed by more than sixteen million online profiles and over two billion social posts. Sideqik will also be adding their first predictive analytics capabilities, allowing marketers to better understand the trends driving their brands, influencers, and marketplace.
Sideqik plans to use this investment to add over 60 employees across their Atlanta headquarters, Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Europe, and continue providing a top-notch level of service to their growing enterprise customer base.
Sideqik serves the largest and most innovative brands in the world – Coca-Cola, Universal Music, Procter & Gamble, Under Armour, Turner, and Home Depot– who use Sideqik to better engage with their customers and the social influencers in their industry.
“Social engagement and influencer marketing have emerged as the fastest growing segment of the marketing technology stack,” said Greg Gretsch, founding partner and managing director, Jackson Square Ventures. “We’re excited to partner with Sideqik on their mission to help companies adapt to this connected world we live in, and to engage with their customers in a better, more authentic, and more engaging way.”
Sideqik is looking for incredible, diverse people to join its team. For more information on career opportunities, please visit the company’s career page here.
Founded in 2012, Sideqik’s platform provides data analysis to help provide context to brand marketers around their market, competition, and consumers. Sideqik’s influencer marketing analytics empower brands to discover new influencers, manage the relationships with influencers they already have, and measure the results of carefully crafted campaigns. The platform works with brands in every step of social media engagement, starting with engaging with fans and ending with the measurement of sales and results. The company’s highly developed capabilities in artificial intelligence, natural language processing, and machine learning provide context and understanding to social media marketing, better enabling brands to do what they do best. Sideqik’s customers include Coca-Cola, Home Depot, Logitech, Procter & Gamble, TV Guide, and Universal Studios.
We’re hiring! See our careers page for information on what it’s like to work for Sideqik and available positions.
Jeremy Haile
