Most people these days probably don’t trust advertising, and for good reason. We all know a company is not going to tell us the downside of using their products, unless they’re legally required to. So of course they will say its the best, since it would be kind of stupid for them not to.
In the end, what matters more, are real people, especially those you trust, telling you what they like, and what they don’t like. We trust them more because they have no reason to lie. That’s the idea behind Influitive, a provider of advocate marketing software, which allows real people to become spokespeople for their favorite brands.
The company announced on Wednesday that has raised an $8.2 million round of funding.
The round is an extension on the $30.5 million in Series B the company raised in July of last year, bringing the total round to $38.5 million. The additional financing came from new investors Leaders Fund and Export Development Canada (EDC), along witrh returning investors including Georgian Partners, Relay Ventures, BDC Capital IT Venture Fund and OurCrowd, as well as several angel investors.
In all, Influitive has now raised approximately $50 million in venture capital funding.
In addition to the new funding, it was also announced that the company has made an acquisition, purchasing mobile apps developer company Ironark Software. Ironark is the company behind mobile apps Hub, which is a home and family organizer, and Workbase, a business task and schedule manager.
No financial terms of the deal were disclosed, but it was revealed that the company’s founders, and its lead developer, will be joining Influitive’s product division, where they will work on expanding Influitivie’s advocate communities to mobile platforms.
“Influitive’s aggressive growth plan and roadmap to create the advocate marketing category incredibly ambitious and exciting. We are thrilled to be joining the team and look forward to continuing to innovate,” Jonathan James, Ironark’s Co-Founder and CEO, said in a statement
Founded in 2010, Influitive turns a company’s best customers into its best sales people. It helps B2B companies discover, mobilize and recognize their advocates in order to drive referrals, references and reviews.
By using Influitive’s AdvocateHub software, marketers can build advocate communities in which members gain recognition and status in exchange for activities that help promote the brand’s interests and reputation.
So, essentially, the company gets good word of mouth from its best customers, and those customers, at the same time, can be rewarded for their efforts, earning perks when they redeem a set amount of points. It’s basically a thank you from the company for spreading the word.
Some of Influitive’s customers include Acquia, Atlassian, DocuSign, HireVue, Hootsuite, Oracle, Marketo and HP Software, which has engaged more than 1,000 IT service management customers in events, content creation and product feedback initiatives.
Influitive is based in Toronto with offices in Boston, Palo Alto and San Francisco.
