It was nearly two years ago that
Yonge Street first told you about B2B marketing company
Influitive. The company was just getting ready for the beta launch of its advocacy-based platform, and like all startups, nobody was quite sure how things would go.
Very well, it turns out. Just before the holidays, the company announced that it has closed $7.3 million in Series A financing. The funding is coming from Hummer Winblad and Relay Ventures, along with some support from existing investors, and will go towards further development of the company's platform. They are also hiring: at 18 staff members now, Influitive currently has four positions they are trying to fill, and anticipate further hiring later this year.
Influitive, headquartered in both Toronto and San Francisco, is making its name with AdvocateHub, a marketing platform which relies on customer reviews, referrals, and engagement. Companies encourage their best customers to sign up; those participants then become advocates for the companies and brands they like, and in return those advocates receive benefits from the companies they've recommended. The idea is that these recommendations can be especially trusted because the advocates are motivated by receiving services from the very companies they are endorsing -- and why would you go to the trouble if you didn't think those services were valuable?
The company is clearly on a roll: as the
Financial Post reports, they closed an earlier round of funding—$3.75 million—just four months ago.
Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source:
Influitive