Gigya passes 1.5 billion users every month

Even the largest companies in the world need social media to reach a mass audience these days. That much is obvious. How they actually do it, though, is another story entirely.

I hear over and over again about how many companies think they can leverage social media themselves without getting any outside assistance, only to find that, in actuality, they really had no idea how to do it. That is where companies like Gigya, a tool that aids businesses with socializing their online properties, come in. They exist solely to help their clients get the most out of their social media presence.

Gigya is biggest player in that space, and it now reaches 1.5 billion unique user a month, it was announced Friday. That means that Gigya is reaching almost two-thirds of the entire global Internet population through its clients. 

Gigya also says that it has surpassed 650 clients, and is now working with almost half of the comScore Top 100 U.S. web properties. In addition to its client and user growth, Gigya also announced that it tripled its sales growth from 2011, and had its biggest quarter ever in Q4, growing 33% quarter to quarter.

"Gigya's growth over the last year has been astounding," Patrick Salyer, CEO of Gigya, said in a statement. "We're on our way to becoming universal on the web and we won't stop until every consumer-facing enterprise is using our technology."

Founded in 2006, Mountain View, California-based Gigya offers an SaaS solution with plug-ins that gives clients the ability to extract real value from social media by monitoring comments, ratings, reviews, live chats, and news feeds.

In 2011, Gigya also introduced three new products to its suite of social infrastructure technology including Social Identity Management, Social Gamification and Ratings & Reviews. In 2012, Gigya released innovative new products such as Registration-as-a-Service and SocialPrivacy Certification.

Its tools are meant to help businesses manage consumer social data. For example, Social Plugins and Gamification are supposed to increase traffic and time spent on a clients website. SocialPrivacy Certification is designed to strengthen customer relationships with the clients, as well as leveraging permission-based social identity data to help with marketing. Gigya also allows clients to registration with Social Login and Registration-as-a-Service. 

Gigya's clients include Wal-Mart, DirectTV, RedBox, Beats Electronics, Pacific Sunwear, American Heart Association, Jelly Belly, Barneys New York, Bad Boy Marketing Group, Wal-Mart,, Food Network, AlItalia and LUSH Cosmetics. 

The company has raised  just under $45 million, including an $11 million Series C led by DAG Ventures in October 2008, a $9.5 million Series B led by Mayfield Fund in March 2008, and a $3 million Series A led by Benchmark Capital and First Round Capital in February 2007. In March 2011, the company raised $6 million in its fourth round of funding,  and then raised $15.3 million in venture capital from new investor Advance Publication. Adobe also joined several of the previous investors as part of the new round, including Mayfield Fund, Benchmark Capital, and DAG Ventures.

The company, which now has over 150 employees, with offices in Mountain View, London and Tel Aviv, says that it plans on expanding further in 2013. It is going to add more than 70 new employees by the end of the year, and will be expanding its product suite and signing hundreds of new clients.