SparkPost Lands $180 Million Strategic Growth Investment

COLUMBIA, Md., Jan. 27, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- SparkPost, the world's largest email sending and optimization platform delivering nearly 40 percent of the world's commercial email, today announced it has secured $180 million from LLR Partners, NewSpring Capital and PNC Bank to invest in the next era of growth of its market-leading email technology. With the major shift to embrace and deploy digital marketing solutions in 2020 and beyond, B2C and B2B enterprises have turned to SparkPost to power their email communications programs, relying on its platform for improved deliverability, user experience, and industry-leading email data and analytics. The investment will help fuel SparkPost's next era of growth and product innovation as organizations continue to look at email as the channel to communicate and educate customers, and transact at scale in the years to come. 

SparkPost's focus on empowering the most sophisticated email senders globally has generated steady revenue growth within the last three years and substantially expanded its customer base, which includes companies like Zillow, The New York Times, Booking.com, Adobe, Rakuten, and Zynga. "We achieved the Rule of 40 in the third quarter of 2020 and we continue to perform at this level into the new year. SparkPost's strong results made this growth financing possible," said Rich Harris, SparkPost's CEO.

COVID-19 and the resulting recession drove many organizations to lean more into digital communications, and SparkPost was able to help customers scale email channel efforts while maintaining an unrivaled level of performance. 

"Email has proven to be the most cost-effective and reliable marketing and customer engagement channel," said David Reuter, Partner at LLR Partners. "Rich and the entire SparkPost team have built impressive momentum throughout 2020 and our investment will help support company growth and its position as a leader in the enterprise email marketing space. We are thrilled to be a part of their journey to help deliver tangible value and customer success to enterprises globally."

"We are pleased to collaborate with both LLR Partners and NewSpring Capital on this transaction, and we look forward to broadening our relationship," said David Mengel, Group Head of PNC Business Credit Technology Finance. "It has been exciting for us to work with SparkPost as they embark on a new chapter in their growth."

In recent years, SparkPost:

• Secured meaningful strategic partnerships and dominant market share in the Email Service Provider and Cross-Channel Marketing Cloud space. Eleven out of the top 13 firms listed in Forrester's 2020 Email Wave™ are powered by SparkPost.
• Completed notable acquisitions, including eDataSource (2019), to further bolster its email data analytics and insights.
• Continues to innovate for more dynamic recipient experiences and revenue-driving email solutions, including AMP (accelerated mobile pages) for Email, which was announced alongside Google in early 2019.
• Developed a unique set of algorithms through its Signals product, trained on the world's largest sending and analytics data footprint, to predict email and engagement issues and deliver immediate insights into email deliverability.
• Unveiled its newly expanded Global Spam Trap Network, which provides organizations the ability to monitor and quickly assess which email domains are underperforming and understand emails that are being flagged as spam.
• Mirrored its global footprint by growing its workforce by over 35% within the last three years and adding notable leadership, including Rich Harris as CEO (formerly of Oracle and AddThis); Hal Muchnick as Chief Commercial Officer (formerly of Oracle and AddThis); Charlie Reverte, Chief Technology Officer (formerly of Oracle and AddThis); and Natalia Dykyj as VP/Head of Marketing (formerly of Web.com and Cision).

"SparkPost has become the top provider of email sending and analytics to the enterprise by going above and beyond to meet our customer's needs. We have developed industry leading technology and a massive data footprint, but our success really centers on our people and how we treat our customers and partners. Every industry was thrust into unprecedented business and environmental challenges in 2020 that forced a leap to digital-everything nearly overnight, and we were there to help them navigate this challenge" said Harris. "This additional investment represents the compelling value of email and its potential in the enterprise, and supports our plans for growth and innovation. We are so thankful for our amazing customers and partners, and very proud of the accomplishments and hard work of our team."

About SparkPost
SparkPost is the industry's most trusted email optimization platform. SparkPost helps senders reliably reach the inbox with powerful solutions to help them plan, execute and optimize their email programs. The SparkPost platform is powered by the industry's largest data network, a team of email experts to help brands elevate every aspect of their email program, and a security and compliance posture to support even the most regulated industries. SparkPost is the world's largest sender, delivering nearly 40% of all commercial email - 4-5 trillion sends annually - and also boasts the world's largest data footprint to help enterprise-level brands make data-driven decisions to improve their email performance. The world's most sophisticated senders, including The New York Times, Zillow, Adobe and Booking.com trust SparkPost to elevate their email.

Learn more at www.sparkpost.com or connect via Twitter, LinkedIn or the SparkPost blog.

About PNC Bank
PNC Bank, National Association, is a member of The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. PNC is one of the largest diversified financial services institutions in the United States, organized around its customers and communities for strong relationships and local delivery of retail and business banking including a full range of lending products; specialized services for corporations and government entities, including corporate banking, real estate finance and asset-based lending; wealth management and asset management. For information about PNC, visit www.pnc.com.

About NewSpring Capital
NewSpring partners with the innovators, makers, and operators of high-performing companies in dynamic industries to catalyze new growth and seize compelling opportunities. The Firm manages over $2.0 billion across five distinct strategies covering the spectrum from growth equity and control buyouts to mezzanine debt. Having invested in over 160 companies, NewSpring brings a wealth of knowledge, experience, and resources to take growing companies to the next level and beyond. Partnering with management teams to help develop their businesses into market leaders, NewSpring identifies opportunities and builds relationships using its network of industry leaders and influencers across a wide array of operational areas and industries. To learn more, visit www.newspringcapital.com.

About LLR Partners
LLR Partners is a lower middle market private equity firm investing in technology and healthcare businesses. We collaborate with our portfolio companies to identify and execute on key growth initiatives and help create long-term value. Founded in 1999 and with more than $5 billion raised across six funds, LLR is a flexible provider of equity capital for growth, recapitalizations and buyouts.

SOURCE SparkPost