Geofeedia Announces $3 Million in Funding, Hits $6.8 Million Total
Featured on the Chicago Tribune
Geofeedia, whose platform helps agencies and organizations collect location-based social media intelligence, on Thursday announced it has raised $3 million, bringing its total funding to $6.8 million. The company in October announced it had raised a $3.5 million in series A funding.
CEO Phil Harris said existing investors responded to Geofeedia’s 2014 growth with offers of more money. Chicago-based Hyde Park Venture Partners led the round, with participation from angel investors Tim Kopp, former CMO of Indianapolis-based ExactTarget; David Gupta, vice chairman and former CEO of Chicago-based SDI; and Gene Delaney, director at San Jose-based Sanmina Corp. All three men joined Geofeedia’s board in October.
“We delivered some large sales growth in calendar year 2014, beyond our expectations and our existing investors came to us and said, ‘Hey, if we funded you with additional capital, could you go even more rapidly?’” Harris said.
Geofeedia, founded in 2011, sold nearly $3 million in subscriptions in 2014, an increase of 857 percent compared to the previous year, the company said. Harris said the company had grown to 10,000 users, up from 8,000 in October. He declined to say how many client accounts, each of which can have multiple users, Geofeedia has.
Harris said the company would use the recent influx of funding to hire 50 new employees in its Chicago and Indianapolis offices, which now house 36 and 15 employees, respectively. He said the new hires likely would be evenly split between technical positions and sales and marketing positions.
“We plan to hire key talent here in Chicago to invest in marketing programs and to expand into new vertical segments,” Harris said. He offered little detail on the new verticals, saying only that the company wants to provide more tools to clients who use Geofeedia for marketing purposes.