[July 30, 2015]

Autopilot Closes $7 Million Round Strengthening the Company's Position as Marketing Automation Solution for the Masses

Autopilot, the multi-channel marketing automation platform, today announced a $7M strategic investment to bring personalized marketing to the masses, increasing total funding to $20.5M. Autopilot aims to fill the void between basic email software and complex marketing software designed for the tech elite, and will use the new financing to transform every business with powerful customer journeys.

Salesforce Ventures and Stage One Capital join previous investors Blackbird Ventures, Garnett Ventures, Rembrandt Venture Partners (News - Alert), Southern Cross Venture Partners, and Tim Draper.

"This new investment shows the immense interest and growth in marketing technology," said Co-founder and CEO Mike Sharkey. "In the past, very few companies could even dream of using marketing automation because the barrier to entry has been too steep - the price too high and the technology too complex. Autopilot is making it possible for businesses of any size to create personalized customer experiences at scale, and at an affordable entry point."

Democratizing Tools for Marketers

Currently, only 4 percent of all companies use marketing automation and 44 percent have never even heard of it¹. To address this clear gap in awareness and education, today Autopilot is also announcing Flight School, a marketing education platform aimed at empowering marketers through a series of guides and training courses. Autopilot is democratizing marketing automation for the masses, raising awareness and diminishing the barrier to entry.

On one end of the spectrum, basic emailing software provides batch and blast capabilities suitable for small companies with simple needs. On the other end, higher end marketing automation is typically more complex and carries a higher price tag (News - Alert) and operating costs. Autopilot is bridging the gap between these two service groups by providing companies with a powerful, scalable platform that is both affordable for SMBs and flexible for Fortune 500 companies.

Flight School will deliver years worth of best practices and insight on how marketers can best connect with their customers throughout the customer journey. Specifically:

• Instant access to pre-built, customer journey templates, called Guides
• Best practices and methodologies for growing leads and sales online, the easy way
Ability to comment on and share valuable HTML, video and e-book content

Spending on marketing software will grow from $20.2 billion in 2014 to more than $32.3 billion in 2018², according to IDC. Despite launching just four months ago, Autopilot has experienced high interest and demand for the platform spiking with signups. Autopilot has signed up over 3,000 companies to help connect their marketing systems and create remarkable customer journeys. Recently named a "high performer" in the VentureBeat Marketing Automation quadrant, Autopilot's client roster includes Cambium Networks, Dolby, Freshdesk, Narrative, and PandaDoc. Platform integration partners include GoodData (News - Alert), Salesforce, Segment, Slack, Twilio and Zapier. The company has also been named as an "OnCloud Top 50 Company to Watch" and was added to the G2Crowd Marketing Automation Grid as a top-performer.

"We chose Autopilot to power our marketing because we needed a solution that gave us the ability to market at the speed of business, and could also scale along with our company," said Michelle Pampin, Vice President of Global Marketing and Global Channel Management at Chicago-based Cambium Networks (News - Alert). "The Autopilot platform gives us the agility to test and improve our marketing performance throughout the entire customer lifecycle."

To learn more about Autopilot's self-service free trial for marketing automation, visit www.autopilothq.com. Pricing starts at $4 per month for 500 contacts.

About Autopilot

Autopilot is a cloud-based software company that helps companies connect their marketing systems, automate their marketing touchpoints, and convert customers. Autopilot's built-in integrations to best of breed marketing, messaging, lead intelligence, and CRM tools make it easy to message consistently using email, SMS, and physical mail. Founded in 2012, Autopilot is based in San Francisco and has raised $20.5M in venture funding. Backers include Salesforce Ventures, Stage One Capital, Rembrandt Venture Partners, Southern Cross Venture Partners, Blackbird Ventures, Tim Draper, and Garnett Ventures.

Salesforce Ventures

Salesforce Ventures-Salesforce's corporate investment group-invests in the next generation of enterprise technology to help companies connect with their customers in entirely new ways. Portfolio companies receive funding as well as access to the world's largest cloud ecosystem and the guidance of Salesforce's innovators and executives. With Salesforce Ventures, portfolio companies can also leverage the expertise of the Salesforce Foundation to incorporate its 1-1-1 model of integrated philanthropy to make giving back part of their business model. Salesforce has invested in more than 100 enterprise cloud startups since 2009. For more information, please visit www.salesforce.com/ventures.

¹ Guy Marion, "2015 Marketing Automation Performance Report," http://www2.autopilothq.com/2015-marketing-automation-performance-report, (January 29, 2015).

² Gerry Murray, Mary Wardley, Melissa Webster, Dan Vesset, Vanessa Thompson, David Schubmehl, Christine Dover, "Worldwide Marketing Software Forecast 2014-2018: $20 Billion And Growing Fast," http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=251902, (October 20, 2014).

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20150730005368/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]