Socialbakers Raises $6M to Accelerate Global Expansion
Socialbakers, a social analytics firm, announced today that it had closed on a round of funding worth $6 million. Index Ventures led the round with backing from Earlybird Venture Capital, a first-round investor.
The startup, which specializes in social media measurement services, plans to use the funds to grow its platform and fuel its global expansion. Having already opened offices in far-flung cities like Dubai, Istanbul, Sao Paulo and Mexico City during the past two years, the company is gearing up to provide more targeted local services, said Socialbakers CEO Jan Rezab.
“With this funding, we will continue building our platform's social measurement features to help companies target their audiences more efficiently, while allowing them to react quickly to the ever-changing social media environment and providing dedicated global care to address their individual needs,” said Rezab in a company release.
Measuring Social Savvy
Socialbakers provides social media measurement and analytics services that take stock of an organization's standing, relative to the competition, on major social networks like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and Google+.
According to the company, 450,000 marketers use its platform and over 20 percent of the Fortune 500 engages with the firm's tools. Its Market Insights and Builder tools enable brands to explore market opportunities and optimize their social strategies. Its client roster includes big brands like McDonald's, Nestle and Vodafone.
The firm is also behind Socially Devoted, an open standard aimed at measuring an organization's customer service savvy in the realm of social media. It takes into account metrics like the number of Facebook fans, response times and the number of questions companies respond to over social media channels.
Competing for Social Analytics Crown
The injection of cash comes as software companies and cloud providers vie for social analytics supremacy.
Earlier this year, HootSuite acquired its popular rival Seesmic in a bid to attract enterprise social media users. And in June, Attensity launched its Pipeline product that can collect data from more than 150 million social media and online sources to generate insights and boost social CRM strategies. The platform has already attracted the attention of corporations like Charles Schwab, EMC, JetBlue Airways and Travelocity.
Industry giants have also been keeping an eye on social analytics.
Late last year, SAP entered the arena by teaming with NetBase. NetBase's tech forms the basis of SAP's Social Media Analytics product. This summer, Kanjoya brought sentiment analysis to Yammer — and by extension Microsoft — courtesy of its emotional intelligence engine called Crane.
Pedro Hernandez is a contributing editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of the IT Business Edge Network, the network for technology professionals. Follow him on Twitter @ecoINSITE.
Pedro Hernandez contributes to Enterprise Apps Today, and 11Press, the technology network. He was previously the managing editor of Internet.com, an IT-related website network. He has expertise in Smart Tech, CRM, and Mobile Tech, Helping Banks and Fintechs, Telcos and Automotive OEMs, and Healthcare and Identity Service Providers to Protect Mobile Apps.
