Blackbird joins $12m round for Australia-US marketing player
Blackbird Ventures has led a $12 million round for Sydney and San Francisco-based marketing software provider Autopilot.
Existing investors Rembrandt Venture Partners, Southern Cross Venture Partners and Salesforce Ventures also contributed. It brings the company's total funding to date to $32 million.
Autopilot focuses on visual marketing software that allows businesses to automate customer relations activities. The company claims to have nearly tripled its revenue within the past 12 months while expanding its client base to include more than 2,300 businesses in 90 countries, including Microsoft and Atlassian. It is currently rolling out a new platform for managing marketing campaigns, known as Insights, which aims to drive business growth through more personal customer interactions.
"We live in an experience-based world where good marketing doesn't feel like marketing at all, yet companies today still view their customers as a name and an email in a spreadsheet," Mike Sharkey, Autopilot ‘s co-founder and CEO, said in a statement. "With the launch of Insights and continued support from our investors, we're helping marketers move beyond batch and blast email to create remarkable multi-channel experiences across the entire customer journey."
Salesforce and US investor Stage1 Capital led a $7 million round for the company in 2015, with participation from Blackbird, Rembrandt, Southern Cross, Garnett Ventures and Tim Draper. This followed a $10 million round in 2014 from Blackbird, Rembrandt and Southern Cross. A year earlier, Southern Cross, Draper and Terry Garnett invested $3.5 million in the company under the name Bislr.
Blackbird was set up in 2012 and raised A$30 million for its debut fund. In 2015, the firm reached a close of about $200 million for its second fund, which comprises a A$75 million main fund and a A$125 million vehicle for follow-on investments.
Recent investment activity in Australian marketing technology includes a A$10 million ($7.5 million) round for Simple from Perle Ventures and Korea's SparkLabs Global Ventures. Last month, Alium Capital Management and Malaysian telecom Axiata invested $23 million in a regional expansion effort by Unlockd.
More on Australasia
Latest News
Asian GPs slow implementation of ESG policies - survey
Asia-based private equity firms are assigning more dedicated resources to environment, social, and governance (ESG) programmes, but policy changes have slowed in the past 12 months, in part due to concerns raised internally and by LPs, according to a...
Singapore fintech start-up LXA gets $10m seed round
New Enterprise Associates (NEA) has led a USD 10m seed round for Singapore’s LXA, a financial technology start-up launched by a former Asia senior executive at The Blackstone Group.
India's InCred announces $60m round, claims unicorn status
Indian non-bank lender InCred Financial Services said it has received INR 5bn (USD 60m) at a valuation of at least USD 1bn from unnamed investors including “a global private equity fund.”
Insight leads $50m round for Australia's Roller
Insight Partners has led a USD 50m round for Australia’s Roller, a venue management software provider specializing in family fun parks.