Klout reportedly raising $30M for $200M valuation

Rumor has it that Klout is raising a big new chunk o' change, despite unpopular algorithm changes

While Klout’s been tweaking its score and ticking some users off, investors haven’t been deterred.  The social influence measurer is rumored to have raised $30 million for a $200 million valuation, according to Business Insider.  The round was reportedly led by Kleiner Perkins, with help from IVP.

Kleiner Perkins previously led Klout’s $8.5 million round back in January, at which point Partner Bing Gordon joined the company’s board of directors. 

Prior to that, Klout raised a $1.5 million Series A round, as well as an undisclosed amount of seed funding.

The company was not immediately available to comment.

Founded in 2008, Klout determines which individuals have the most influence on social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.  To gauge a user’s influence, the service tracks the “impact” of their opinions, links, and recommendations to determine who has the most sway over online content.  Essentially, the algorithm looks at tweets, status updates, Google mentions, LinkedIn connections, and it measures the ripple effects and chain reactions that each has to effectively measure how other Web users respond.

For example, Justin Bieber represents a perfect score of 100, while my Klout score hovers at a healthy 45…so I’m almost half as influential as Justin Bieber.  Somehow that seems very, very inaccurate to me, but whatever, I can live with that.

Klout’s technology obviously has meaningful implications for marketers and advertisers who want to hitch their brands to the biggest movers and shakers on the Web.  To that end, Klout perks was formed, which rewards the most influential tweeters with everything from gift cards and discounts to free samples and early access to new products and services.  The idea is to get those top influencers tweeting about a service or product early on, thereby turning customers into marketers.

The recent changes to the Klout algorithm have some users grumbling, however, as the algorithm tweak caused many a Klout score to decrease. The changes even spawned an #OccupyKlout movement on Twitter.

We'll keep you posted on Klout's funding news as more details emerge, so stay tuned.

Image source: adweek.com