Buddy Media raises $54 million to keep maturing

Social media marketing company makes a Series D round with its existing investors

Facebook marketing business Buddy Media announced Monday that it has secured $54 million in Series D funding from several of its current investors, including GGV Capital, Institutional Venture Partners and Bay Partners, as well as new investor Insight Venture Partners.

Jeff Richards, partner at GGV, led the round and has joined the company’s board of directors. Also joining the board is Kevin Colleran, who previously served as Facebook’s longest tenured employee and its first advertising sales executive. And Michael Kassan, chairman and CEO of Medialink, has been named special advisor to CEO Michael Lazerow.

Added to a $23 million Series C closed last fall and other earlier rounds, Buddy Media has raised nearly $90 million in total venture capital funding.

Buddy Media, for the unacquainted, provides a marketing platform for Facebook, enabling brands to set up a social media presence on the most popular networking site on the Web. Brands always hear that, in this day and age, they need to be on social media sites, engaging with fans, encouraging sharing, introducing new products through the new medium and more, and Buddy gives its clients that power.

Current clients include the likes of Sony, American Express, Samsung, Gilt Groupe and even Playboy. Entertainment companies, fashion retail companies, fast food chains--nobody is safe from the social media revolution, as evidenced by Buddy’s addition of 200 new customers in 2011.

In tune with its growing client base, the company has seen its revenue double since the end of 2010.

"Buddy Media has a proven management team, sustained revenue growth and a massive market opportunity,” said new board member Jeff Richards. “The company is the market leader in a category that sits at the intersection of social media and software-as-a-service (SaaS), two of the largest and fastest growing markets in the technology industry.”

Last big news we heard from Buddy Media was in May, when the company acquired social commerce and analytics startup Spinback. Around the same time, we published an interview with company CEO Michael Lazerow, in which he says Buddy Media could account for over 10 percent of ads sold on Facebook.