The Internet has been great for businesses to get information out to their customers in greater speed than ever before. Got a big sale going on? Businesses can push it out to their own website, Yelp, Facebook, Twitter and a zillion other places on the Web.
After a while, though, it’s gotta be insane trying to keep all of that information up to date. And then, if a customer sees that there is a sale, and then comes to the store to find out it already ended, they’ve probably just lost their business.
That is why so many businesses use Yext, which acts as solution to allow local businesses to have a centralized location to manage their marketing across 50 sites. The company has now raised $50 million in new funding, it was announced in a blog post on Wednesday.
The round was led by Deven Parekh at Insight Venture Partners, and also included existing investors Marker LLC, Institutional Venture Partners (IVP), and Sutter Hill Ventures.
The company had previously raised over $65 million, most recently $27 million in a Series E round of investment in June of 2012. This round brings its total investment to over $115 million.
In its last round, the company was said to be valued at $270 million; with this latest round, reports are putting it at $520 million.
The New York City-based Yext lets marketers and businesses synchronize their data, including information about local content, listings, store pages, social pages, and campaigns, across different platforms, including local search services, as well as their own websites.
The company offers the Yext GeoMarketing Cloud, with lets marketers control their business listings across maps, directory sites, their own web and mobile apps and social media. So, for example, by using Yext, a bank, retailer, or small business will be able to keep customers informed of store locations, hours, or photos for all their branch locations everywhere, and in real-time.
The Yext Cloud is now used by 300,000 businesses, including dozens of Fortune 500 companies. The company has over 50 million locations around the world. The company was also named #20 on Forbes Most Promising Companies 2014 list.
Founded in 2006, Yext started life as a pay-per-call ad business, which it eventually spun out as Felix. As the company started investing more in its online listing business, it sold off Felix to CityGrid Media in August 2012. The money is received was used to further fund the current version of Yext.
Last month the company made its first ever acquisition, buying up Citrrus, a software consulting company, which the company said “accelerates our ability to provide the best GeoMarketing software and services on the planet.”
(Image source: yext.com/company/about)
