TapInfluence Secures $5.0 Million in Funding Led by Grotech Ventures and Access Venture Partners

BOULDER, Colo., Sept. 10, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- TapInfluence (www.tapinfluence.com) the leader in influencer marketing software solutions, today announced it has closed a $5.0 million round of Series B funding led by existing investor, Grotech Ventures, and new investor, Access Venture Partners. Both venture capital firms boast successful track records of investments in the social and software space with portfolios that include LivingSocial, Advertising.com, Sympoz and LogRhythm. The latest round of funding will be used to boost the company's hiring of engineering, marketing and customer success staff throughout the United States. The company also announced that Kirk Holland of Access Ventures Partners will be named to the TapInfluence board of directors.

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"Content marketing continues to be a challenge for organizations," said Ian Michiels, principal analyst at Gleanster. "It's not just about creating more content, it's about creating engaging content that actually influences purchase decisions. "Brand marketers need a scalable way to partner with influential brand advocates to develop meaningful and authentic content that resonates with audiences.  The real winners in the space will be companies like TapInfluence, who are developing deep relationships with both influencers and brands seeking to partner with one another in a turnkey, scalable, and measurable way," said Michiels.

TapInfluence is the leading platform licensed by marketers to automate the time-consuming and manual process of finding relevant digital influencers (those with key audiences on blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other social platforms) and collaborating with them to create meaningful, brand-sponsored content. The cloud-based software provides a single workflow system that enables brands and agencies to co-create branded content with influencers, distribute that content across social platforms and brand sites, and access detailed analytics to measure the actual monetary value and ROI.  

"While consumers appreciate product information from brands, what influences their purchase decisions the most are opinions from other consumers," said Kirk Holland, managing director with Access Venture Partners. "Marketers are underserved when it comes to tools that allow them to engage buyers with true, consumer-centric content and TapInfluence is the only company in the market that fills that need."

The turnkey solution includes access to a marketplace of influencers that can be searched by more than 35 different criteria including: reach, topic, gender, language, geography, education, and audience demographics. Brands can easily plan campaigns, identify and invite influencers, manage workflow and calendars, target the distribution of content, and measure the results in real time.

"Marketers see the need for content-focused strategies, but most don't have the internal resources to create the volume and variety needed to reach consumers," said Rustin Banks, president and CEO of TapInfluence. "Influencers represent a powerful content army for brands and the only way to manage and measure that effort with hundreds of influencers instead of a handful, is with technology that lets you scale. The investment by both Grotech Ventures and Access Venture Partners allows us to further accelerate our growth strategies to address the demand we are seeing from brands, agencies, and channel partners," added Banks.

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About TapInfluence

TapInfluence (www.tapinfluence.com) provides the industry's only marketing software that automates the creation, management and measurement of influencer content marketing programs. Enterprise CMO's and marketers use TapInfluence to scale the creation of content and distribute it to consumers in a meaningful and authentic way. Social influencers with key audiences on blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and other social platforms leverage the power of TapInfluence to connect with relevant brands and generate revenue from their content. The company provides brands and marketers with the ability to analyze content and demonstrate ROI. TapInfluence customers include: Microsoft, ABC News, Proctor & Gamble, JC Penny and RedBox.  Founded in 2009 and located in Boulder, Colo., TapInfluence is venture-funded and privately held. Join in the conversation with the company @TapInfluence and  Facebook.com/tapinfluence.

About Access Venture Partners

Access Venture Partners (www.accessvp.com) invests in early stage technology companies based primarily in the Rocky Mountain Region.  Founded in 1999, we have invested in over fifty early stage companies, participating in some of the region's most innovative and fastest growing companies.  In addition to backing some of the top rising stars, we have a history of backing the same entrepreneurs on their new ventures.  Our deep and extensive network of entrepreneurs, corporate executives and investors from leading venture and growth equity firms, provide our companies with a competitive advantage at all stages of growth. We provide significantly more value that just capital and have a proven ability to help our companies grow rapidly, raise capital and achieve successful exits.

About Grotech

Founded in 1984 and investing out of its eighth fund, Grotech Ventures (www.grotech.com) is a leading early investor in high-potential technology companies. Grotech seeks innovative IT companies with particular emphasis on digital and social media; software and SaaS; security and storage technologies; healthcare information technology; and communications technology and services. Grotech continues to invest and add value throughout the growth of its portfolio companies. The firm has a strong combination of industry relationships and deep domain and operational expertise to accelerate growth. Grotech supports early-stage companies through investments starting at $500,000.

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