Yext Secures $27M In Funding From Leading Technology Investors

NEW YORK, June 12, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Yext, the company that syncs business listings on 50+ publishers, today announced a $27 million Series E investment led by Marker, a new fund launched by Rick Scanlon, the founder of Crescent Point Capital Group.  Also participating in the round is CrunchFund and existing Yext investors, Sutter Hill Ventures, Institutional Venture Partners (IVP), and WGI Group.  The capital will be used to expand the Yext platform.

"Today is a watershed moment for both Yext and anyone who's ever found wrong information about a business online," said Howard Lerman, Yext co-founder & CEO.  "By enabling businesses to instantly update their listings, end users find up-to-date info on our partner sites. We are delighted to welcome our new partner Marker as we expand our platform to synchronize the world's local information everywhere."

Yext has experienced explosive growth over the past year, now powering local information for 50,000 businesses on 50 sites.  Since September, Yext has powered 950,000 distinct location updates, saving millions of outdated local search results from appearing. 

"Yext is solving a huge problem with the potential to serve over 20,000,000 businesses in the US alone.  The company has a market-leading product, a proven management team, and sits in the intersection of local advertising and Software-as-a-service (Saas), two of the largest and fastest growing markets in the technology industry," said Richard Scanlon of Marker. "We're very excited to support their rapid expansion."

Michael Walrath, founder of WGI Group and Yext's chairman said, "In just a short amount of time, Yext has established itself as one of the fastest growing companies in the New York Tech scene and has proven to be the category leader," said Michael Walrath, of WGI Group and Yext chairman. "This investment validates a huge bet to transform the company."

About Yext

Yext (http://www.yext.com) provides amazing local search results with PowerListings, a local information hub that syncs listings across a network of premium sites and mobile apps. With Yext PowerListings, small and large businesses can quickly and easily update their business information, photos and specials from one central location. Today, Yext PowerListings syncs information for over 50,000 locations. The company was founded in 2006 by Howard Lerman, Brian Distelburger and Brent Metz.

About Marker

New York based Marker LLC (www.marker-llc.com) is a new investment firm founded by Rick Scanlon and Thomas Pompidou focused on investments in high growth companies with the potential to be market leaders.  Mr. Scanlon is a founding and managing partner of Singapore based Crescent Point Group, a leading Asian private equity firm.  Mr. Pompidou is a partner of Crescent Point Group.  For more information, please contact [email protected]. 

About Institutional Venture Partners (IVP)

With $3 billion of committed capital, Institutional Venture Partners (IVP) is one of the premier later-stage venture capital and growth equity firms in the United States. The partnership is currently investing IVP XIII, a $750 million later-stage fund focused on investments in rapidly growing technology and media companies. Founded in 1980, IVP has invested in over 300 companies, 90 of which have gone public. IVP is one of the top performing firms in the industry and has a 31 year IRR of 43.2%. IVP specializes in venture growth investments, industry rollups, founder liquidity transactions, and select public market investments. Since its inception, IVP investments include such notable companies as ArcSight (HPQ), Aspect Communications, ComScore (SCOR), Concur Technologies (CNQR), Digital River (DRIV), Dropbox, HomeAway (AWAY), Juniper Networks (JNPR), Kayak, LegalZoom, LivingSocial, MySQL (ORCL), Netflix (NFLX), Polycom (PLCM), Seagate (STX), Shazam, Synchronoss (SNCR), Tivo (TIVO), Twitter, and Zynga (ZNGA). For more information, visit http://www.ivp.com or follow IVP on Twitter: http://twitter.com/ivp.

About Sutter Hill Ventures

Sutter Hill Ventures is a venture capital firm that finances technology-based start-up and early-stage companies that pioneer products or services in growth markets, especially those in information technology and health care. Founded in 1964, it is one of Silicon Valley's original venture capital firms. For more information about Sutter Hill Ventures, please visit www.shv.com.

About WGI Group

WGI Group (http://www.wgifund.com/) provides early stage capital to internet entrepreneurs. Founded and managed by experienced internet entrepreneurs Michael Walrath, Noah Goodhart and Jonah Goodhart, WGI Group has invested in over 13 companies since 2007, most notably Right Media, which was acquired by Yahoo! in 2007.

Media Contact
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Justin Finnegan
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[email protected]

SOURCE Yext