TrustRadius Raises $5.5M Series B to Lead B2B Customer Voice Revolution
Bill Macaitis, former CMO at Slack and Zendesk, joins as Board Advisor
AUSTIN, Texas, Sept. 20, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- TrustRadius, the most-trusted review platform for B2B technology, announced today that it has secured an additional $5.5 million in financing to accelerate its growth and fuel continued product innovation. The latest round is led by LiveOak Venture Partners with ongoing participation from Mayfield. The company also added Bill Macaitis, former CMO at Slack and Zendesk and SVP Marketing at Salesforce, as a board advisor. To date, TrustRadius has raised $13 million in its quest to transform how business technology is bought and sold.
"The B2B buyer's journey has changed, and authentic user insights are now a critical component of the technology purchasing process," said Venu Shamapant, General Partner at LiveOak Venture Partners. "TrustRadius has succeeded in building a trusted resource for buyers as well as a powerful platform for vendors to leverage their customer's voice in marketing, sales, product strategy and more. Given their strong execution and innovative approach, LiveOak is thrilled to partner with TrustRadius to accelerate their growth and redefine how B2B vendors use customer reviews."
The Series B follows two years of strong revenue growth and achieving positive operating cash flow as technology vendors have embraced the TrustRadius platform. With the new funding, the company plans to increase its investment in product development and go-to-market while tripling headcount over the next 24 months.
"While buyers are conducting more independent research than ever before, marketing and sales engagement remains a critical influence in considered B2B purchases," said Vinay Bhagat, founder and CEO of TrustRadius. "Vendors that proactively use the voice of their customers are seeing tremendous results across their funnel, from increasing lead conversion to closing deals faster. Our unique strategy centers around driving the highest-quality customer content via in-depth reviews, and empowering vendors to effectively use that content in their own channels, as well as ensuring buyers can easily access the trusted insights they seek."
Today, over 100 leading technology brands work with TrustRadius. Clients span all tech verticals, ranging from disruptors and category leaders like AlienVault, Marketo, TrendKite and Qubit to multi-product companies like IBM, Oracle and TIBCO.
"I cannot think of a marketing touchpoint that has not been impacted by the customer's voice," said Thomas Been, CMO of TIBCO. "We built a marketing rocketship, but we needed a bigger booster, and that's exactly what TrustRadius has been. Their platform has allowed us to more efficiently and effectively capture the voice of our customers, and as a result, have a deeper impact on the business. Everybody in the company benefits from TrustRadius."
TrustRadius also welcomes Bill Macaitis as a strategic board advisor. Macaitis, who has led marketing at some of B2B technology's most iconic and fastest growing companies, will help structure and scale go-to-market strategy.
"When you look at TrustRadius compared to some of the of the other players in the space, you realize that they are doing this the right way," added board advisor Bill Macaitis. "First, TrustRadius solves a serious pain point, which is getting customers on the record. But unlike other sites, TrustRadius helps you take all these authentic user reviews and integrate them directly into your sales and marketing process. Now reviews can dynamically appear on your website to increase conversion, or instantly show up in Salesforce so reps can have relevant and authentic testimonials right at their fingertips. What marketer wouldn't love that? Combine all those factors with great leadership, and it's an honor to join the team."
For more information, visit the review site at www.trustradius.com and learn about the vendor platform at vendors.trustradius.com.
About TrustRadius
TrustRadius is the most trusted review platform for business technology. We help buyers make confident decisions with in-depth reviews and ratings from real users. We also help vendors engage and convert buyers by putting their customer's voice to work, authentically and at scale. Headquartered in Austin, TX, TrustRadius was founded by successful entrepreneurs and is backed by the Mayfield Fund and LiveOak Venture Partners.
About LiveOak Venture Partners
LiveOak is a $109MM Fund based in Austin, TX and was founded by Ben Scott, Krishna Srinivasan, and Venu Shamapant (all formerly of Austin Ventures). While many of LiveOak's investments begin in the early stages, LiveOak is a full lifecycle investor focused on technology and technology-driven service companies based in Texas. With over 17 years of successful early-stage investing in Texas, the Founders of LiveOak have helped entrepreneurs create industry-leading companies, such as Spatial Wireless (acquired by Alcatel-Lucent), Navini Networks (acquired by Cisco Systems), LifeSize Technologies (acquired by Logitech), Mavenir Systems, and StackEngine (Acquired by Oracle).
About Mayfield
Mayfield is a global venture capital firm with over $2.7 billion under management and a people- first philosophy of investing. Mayfield invests primarily in early-stage technology companies in the enterprise and consumer sectors. Since its founding in 1969, the firm has invested in more than 520 companies resulting in 115 IPOs and more than 160 mergers or acquisitions, including category-defining SaaS/software companies such as Servicemax, Marketo, Concur, TIBCO and Citrix. Some recent successes include Moat (acquired by Oracle), Elastica (acquired by Symantec), Qunar (IPO), and SolarCity (acquired by Tesla).
Media Contact
Bertrand Hazard
VP Marketing, TrustRadius
[email protected]
512-413-0334
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