InsideView closes $12M round for social sales

The B2B sales company gets support from Foundation Capital and existing investors

InsideView, a company that bills itself as a "social sales and sales intelligence leader," on Thursday announced the close of a $12 million Series C round led by Foundation Capital, which has also invested in such noteworthy companies as Chegg, Netflix, SimplyHired, and more. Existing investors Emergence Capital Partners, Rembrandt Venture Partners, and Greenhouse Capital Partners also chipped in, bringing the company's total raised to $25.4 million. 

Created in 2005 by founder and CEO Umberto Milletti, InsideView combines traditional editorial sources with social media to aggregate information about companies, including people, events, SEC filings, blogs, and more from sources like Reuters, Capital IQ, Cortera, SimplyHired, LinkedIn, and--of course--Facebook. The net result is a rich tapestry of social connections and curated information for B2B sales professionals to establish connections and more effectively drive sales. InsideView currently serves more than 75,000 sales professionals across 1,000 companies, representing a user base growth of more than 3x from the company's previous 20,000 users.

Additionally, in the past year, the company saw record-breaking revenue growth of 135% and won numerous awards, including  four Sales & Marketing 2.0 2011 Awards, one of which was Best Use of Social Media for Sales.

"This was a clear opportunity to invest in a market leader," said Foundation Capital General Partner Paul Holland in a prepared statement. "InsideView has built the most powerful platform for analyzing vast amounts of data and delivering actionable information to sales organizations, increasing sales productivity and revenue. Now they are leading the way in social selling, transforming the exploding amount of social media into intelligence that impacts the sales cycle." Holland will be joining the company's board of directors

InsideView plans to use the new funds to expand distribution partnerships in order to firm up its presence among the 10 million B2B sales professionals worldwide. It will also continue to invest in sales and market education along the lines of its recently launched Social Selling University, which educates businesses and professionals in the need to include social media in their sales and marketing projects. 

Image source: InsideView.com