G2 Crowd Secures $7 Million in Series A Funding to Advance Vision of Changing the Way Business Software is Bought and Sold
July 29 2015 - 7:30AM
Business Wire
New Funding to Accelerate Growth and Drive
Development of Leading B2B Review Platform
G2 Crowd, the world’s leading business software review platform,
today announced that it has secured $7 million in Series A funding
led by Pritzker Group Venture Capital with significant
participation from existing investors Chicago Ventures, Hyde Park
Venture Partners, Chairman Godard Abel, and G2 Crowd’s management
team. In addition, industry leaders Thomas Lehrman (GLG founder)
from Haystack Partners and High Alpha with Managing Partner, Scott
Dorsey (former ExactTarget co-founder/CEO) joined the round.
G2 Crowd has rapidly become the leading business software review
platform that transforms the buying experience by providing
real-time insights based on peer reviews and social signals rather
than on dated analyst opinions. G2 Crowd now features an unmatched
37,000-plus in-depth user reviews on thousands of business software
products which are being read by more than 300,000 software buyers
each month.
G2 Crowd will use the funding to extend its leadership and
accelerate growth by hiring additional top talent to build out its
buyer community. G2 Crowd also plans to invest in providing buyers
with more unique insights from the rapidly growing mass of review
content and social signals.
“G2 Crowd is rapidly becoming the key information source for any
executive in the purchasing review phase of B2B software
technologies,” said Adam Koopersmith, partner, Pritzker Group
Venture Capital, who is also joining the G2 Crowd board. “We’re
very impressed by the company’s rapid growth and we’re looking
forward to partnering with the company’s leadership team to help G2
Crowd scale and further drive awareness of the industry’s
increasing demand for expert peer advice.”
“By bringing the collective power of trusted peers to the
forefront, business buyers now have transparency when evaluating
B2B software technologies,” said Tim Handorf, co-founder and
president, G2 Crowd. “We’re excited to use this investment to scale
our platform, add more software categories with compelling reviews,
and grow our awareness in the world of business software.”
According to BlueShift Research's June 2015 Trends Tracker
Survey, 70 percent of consumers trust online reviews. While
consumer goods reviews are plentiful, business buyers have
traditionally been forced to rely on sales-coordinated referrals.
G2 Crowd has found that professionals are active advocates of
companies and products, but previously lacked channels to share
what it’s like to actually implement a solution in practice.
Similarly G2 Crowd intuitively packages insights from expert
peers and everyday end users to give decision makers the
real-world, situational context needed to make their purchase
decisions with confidence. The G2 Crowd community is seeing direct
impact on software providers as consumer workers use ratings and
feedback to help drive innovation to transform work itself.
“Ninety percent of customers say they are influenced by online
reviews, which speaks to the importance of social proof in today’s
purchase process,” said Mark Organ, CEO, Influitive. “This need for
authentic insight points to the value of advocate driven online
reviews, especially when considering that peer recommendations make
buyers five times happier with B2B software purchases. Plain and
simple, advocacy infused online reviews are critical for driving
purchase intent.”
About G2 Crowd, Inc.
G2 Crowd, the world’s leading business software review platform,
leverages its 37,000-plus user reviews read by 300,000 software
buyers each month to help them make better purchasing decisions.
Co-founded by the founder and former executives from SaaS leader
BigMachines (acquired by Oracle) and backed by roughly $12 million
in venture capital, G2 Crowd is bringing authenticity and
transparency to business technology research. For more information,
go to G2Crowd.com.
About Pritzker Group Venture Capital
Pritzker Group, led by Tony and J.B. Pritzker, has three
principal investment teams: Private Capital, which acquires and
operates leading North America-based companies; Venture Capital,
which provides multi-stage venture funding to technology companies
throughout the United States; and Asset Management, which partners
with top-performing investment managers across global public
markets.
Pritzker Group Venture Capital, formerly New World Ventures,
helps entrepreneurs build market-leading technology companies at
every stage of their growth. Since its founding in 1996, the firm
has worked side-by-side with entrepreneurs at more than 100
companies, building partnerships based on trust and integrity. The
firm’s proprietary capital structure allows for tremendous
flexibility, and its experienced team of investment professionals
and entrepreneurs offers companies a vast network of strategic
relationships and guidance. Successful exits in recent years
include Fleetmatics (NYSE: FLTX), SinglePlatform (acquired by
Constant Contact), Zinch (acquired by Chegg), Playdom (acquired by
Disney), LeftHand Networks (acquired by Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:
HPQ)), and TicketsNow (acquired by Ticketmaster (NASDAQ: TKTM)).
For more information, visit pritzkergroup.com.
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version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20150729005499/en/
Blanc & Otus for G2 CrowdShasta Smith,
415-856-5123shasta.smith@blancandotus.comorG2 CrowdDaniel Honigman,
917-691-7410dhonigman@g2crowd.com