Visible Tech gets $12 mln in Series B round from Ignition, WPP

Seattle-based Visible Technologies said early Monday that it hauled in $12 million in Series B funding as it expands to meet rising demand for its online reputation management services. The fund raising round was led by new investor Ignition Partners, a venture capital firm, and by the global advertising giant WPP Group, an early strategic investor in Visible Tech.

Founded in 2003, the startup sells software that allows companies to monitor and respond to what is being written about them in blogs and other social media Web sites. To see Visible Technologies' Vator.tv pitch from Blake Cahill, the firm's VP of marketing, click on the video above.

More companies are adopting online reputation management as part of a broad move toward using the Internet for marketing, competitive intelligence, and to help blunt the impact of negative buzz about their products. Visible Technologies' software offerings started shipping in May and have an average selling price of $175,000 per year, CEO Adam Selig told Vator.tv in an interview last month.

See the full interview with Selig and Vator.tv's Bambi Francisco here:  Blake's interview. Along with its investment, Bellevue, Wash.-based Ignition Partners placed Michelle Goldberg on Visible's board of directors.