MarketShare Announces $38 Million Investment to Accelerate Technology Enhancements and Global Expansion

LOS ANGELES, April 22, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- MarketShare, the industry's leading cross-media predictive analytics firm, today announced an investment led by growth equity firm FTV Capital and joined by existing investor Elevation Partners and other investors. The financing will be used to further enhance the company's state-of-the-art technology platform as well as to accelerate growth in markets worldwide.

Privately held MarketShare helps CMOs of Global 1000 companies, including many of the world's most recognizable brands, tangibly improve marketing performance. The company has an unparalleled suite of software tools and solutions deploying its AOA Analytics™ (Attribution > Optimization > Allocation), unique in its ability to effectively evaluate all forms of marketing and sales investments, including paid media (i.e., TV, print, display, search, video, and social media, trade funds), owned media (i.e., website traffic), and earned media (i.e., word-of- mouth, social media, and PR), as described in a recent feature article in Harvard Business Review (March, 2013).

MarketShare's co-CEOs, Wes Nichols and Jon Vein, said, "Our new partners will bring a wealth of experience and wisdom to MarketShare so we, in turn, can bring richer insights and better decision-making to our clients and to the marketing community at large." MarketShare's COO Ivan Markman concluded, "We are confident our new partners will bring critical strategic value to fuel our continued investments in technological innovation, global expansion and acquisitions."

"As part of a successful, long-term theme, FTV continues to look for innovative, high growth companies at the cutting edge of analytics and digital marketing," stated Eric Byunn, FTV Capital partner and new MarketShare board member. "We are highly enthusiastic about the advanced analytics capabilities MarketShare's platform delivers. Enterprises in the FTV Global Partner Network, including some of the largest US financial institutions, have validated that MarketShare has built an essential navigation solution for CMOs."

Ted Meisel, Senior Advisor at Elevation Partners, former CEO of Overture Services and President of Search Marketing at Yahoo! said, "We invested in MarketShare five years ago with the goal of combining the world's most sophisticated marketing models, cloud-based technology, and easier-to-use product interfaces." Adam Hopkins, Managing Director at Elevation Partners, added, "We increased our investment because we think the team has nailed it, enabling marketing to be accountable for business results and manifesting itself in the form of rapid growth at the company."

Terence Kawaja and Brian Andersen of LUMA Partners served as advisors on the transaction.

About MarketShare

MarketShare is an analytics company that enables businesses to grow efficiently by uncovering which actions really drive results. Founded in 2005, MarketShare has a track record of ground-breaking innovations in data, modeling and software and has worked with over half of the Fortune 50. MarketShare's platform provides a combination of technology, data, modeling and business intelligence solutions that lead to improved decision-making, next- generation attribution and optimization for businesses. The company is headquartered in Los Angeles, with offices in San Francisco, New York, London, Tokyo and Bangalore. For more information, please go to: http://www.marketshare.com; follow us on twitter @MarketShareCo

About FTV Capital

FTV Capital is a growth equity firm with over $1 billion under management that invests in high-growth companies offering a range of innovative solutions in four sectors: business services, financial services, payments/transaction processing, and technology. FTV's experienced team leverages its domain expertise and proven track record in each of these sectors to help motivated management teams accelerate growth. FTV also provides companies with access to its Global Partner Network, a group of the world's leading enterprises and executives who have helped FTV portfolio companies for more than a decade. Founded in 1998, FTV Capital has invested in 79 portfolio companies across four funds, and has offices in San Francisco and New York. For more information, visit www.ftvcapital.com.

About Elevation Partners

Elevation Partners is a $1.9 billion private equity firm that makes large-scale investments in market-leading media, entertainment, and consumer-related businesses where it can partner with management to enhance growth and profitability through a combination of strategic capital and operational insight. Its investment team has a unique combination of media, entertainment, and technology expertise and relationships; investing experience; and operating knowledge. For more information, please visit http://www.elevation.com.

Media Contact:

Jonathan Zaback - [email protected]  - 917 293 5047

SOURCE MarketShare