Showpad Secures $50 Million in Series C Funding Led by Insight Venture Partners

SAN FRANCISCO, May 19, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Showpad, the world's most powerful content activation platform, announced today that it has secured $50 million in Series C funding led by Insight Venture Partners. Previous investors Dawn Capital and Hummingbird Ventures also participated in the new funding round. The investment will be used to build on Showpad's leadership position in the marketplace, accelerate the growth of its sales and marketing teams globally, and further enhance its platform.  

The Series C investment comes on the heels of rapid expansion and customer growth for Showpad. The company has been more than doubling revenue for the last four years. With hundreds of customers worldwide, including Johnson & Johnson, GE, Coca-Cola Enterprises, Xerox, Kimberly-Clark, and Bridgestone, Showpad helps every business harness the power of its content. Today the Showpad platform is focused on driving sales and marketing productivity, and new functionality is being developed to address the wider content challenge every business faces today.

"Analysts¹ estimate that 60 to 70 percent of a company's content goes unused, in large part because the content is languishing in silos, or is irrelevant. We've built Showpad to solve that problem and created the only platform that increases the effectiveness of a company's content by making it incredibly easy to find, use, share, and measure," said Showpad Co-CEO and Co-Founder, Pieterjan Bouten.

"Our focus on bringing simplicity and joy of use to enterprise software has put in place a great foundation for growth and innovation, and this newest round of funding will position Showpad to further establish the company as the market's leading content activation platform," said Showpad Co-CEO and Co-Founder, Louis Jonckheere.

Unlike traditional file sharing systems, portals, or content management systems, Showpad is the only platform that allows users to effortlessly present and share content, and easily measure its impact on the business.

Showpad's marketing, channel and sales enablement solutions help ensure sales and marketing teams are aligned and working together more effectively to increase productivity. With Showpad, sales teams are able to consistently deliver the most relevant content to the right audience and optimize their time in front of prospects and customers. By providing powerful analytics, marketers gain full visibility into which content sales teams are using and how successful the materials are with prospects and customers, while reducing the time spent looking for materials and the cost of developing content that is never used.

Jeff Horing, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Insight Venture Partners, who will join Showpad's board of directors, states "We are excited to join existing investors Dawn Capital and Hummingbird Ventures to assist Showpad in fully exploiting the strong and rapidly growing demand for its product. Showpad is a powerful solution for marketing and sales organizations, and we are thrilled to partner up and enable their customers to leverage their content more effectively and improve their marketing effectiveness and sales productivity."

Norman Fiore, Partner at Dawn Capital, said: "We are delighted to be involved in one of Europe's largest SaaS investments this year.  Showpad has been on an exciting journey since it was funded in 2011, growing rapidly to achieve 100% year on year growth.  We joined them on that journey in 2014 and with this latest funding round now complete, we look forward to working alongside management, Hummingbird Ventures, and incoming investor Insight Venture Partners as Showpad embarks on its next stage of growth."

Showpad is also announcing today the launch of two new products to activate content within email and CRM to further strengthen its current offering. With Showpad for Gmail, sales representatives can now find and share the most relevant marketing content without leaving their email solution, and through a new integration with Salesforce, relevant content will be pushed to them via their CRM.

Showpad for Gmail:

• With Showpad for Gmail, sales representatives can now leverage all relevant content from the platform in which they spend the majority of their working day. Showpad content can be accessed within Gmail to create personalized emails, speeding up their ability to progress opportunities, engage with prospects, and follow up on ongoing deals.
• The integration gives sales representatives visibility into how prospects are interacting with their shared content so they can prioritize their pipeline and coordinate follow-ups based on engagement.
• Showpad for Gmail provides marketing teams control over content used in this way, as well as insights on which content resonates best with customers.

Showpad's Salesforce Integration:
On average, a salesperson spends only 22% of their time actively selling. The rest of their time is used for preparation and performing administrative tasks such as logging data into a CRM system, like Salesforce. This data is often inaccurate and incomplete since it is entered after a meeting has already taken place.

• With Showpad's Salesforce integration, sales reps can now spend more time selling and achieve better results. The integration allows users to do the following: 

• Easily access and create contacts or leads in Salesforce through Showpad
• Log all content shares with prospects as activities in Salesforce, providing salespeople and managers with in-depth insights into any deal
• Log in-person or online meetings as activities in Salesforce
• View how your prospects are engaging with content in Salesforce, allowing salespeople to easily identify how engaged a prospect really is and provide a more accurate sales forecast
• Connect multiple instances of Salesforce to your Showpad account

About Showpad

Showpad delivers the world's most powerful content activation platform—one that makes your content incredibly easy to find, present, share, and measure. Showpad empowers businesses to deliver their content to the right audience at the right time with the most intuitive and robust content platform. With Showpad, sales and marketing teams work better together to engage with audiences, advance conversations, inspire loyalty, and accelerate your business. The Showpad platform can be deployed quickly and scales for any company.

Founded in 2011, Showpad activates the content of over 850 companies around the world, including Johnson & Johnson, Fujifilm, Audi, Intel, and Kimberly-Clark. Showpad has dual headquarters—in San Francisco and in Ghent, Belgium—plus offices in Portland, and in London. For more information on Showpad, visit www.showpad.com or follow us on Twitter: @showpad.

About Insight Venture Partners
Insight Venture Partners is a leading global venture capital and private equity firm investing in high-growth technology and software companies that are driving transformative change in their industries. Founded in 1995, Insight has raised more than $13 billion and invested in more than 250 companies worldwide. Our mission is to find, fund and work successfully with visionary executives providing them with practical, hands-on growth expertise to foster long-term success. For more information on Insight and all of its investments, visit www.insightpartners.com or follow us on Twitter: @insightpartners.

About Dawn Capital:
Dawn Capital is an early stage VC firm run by entrepreneurs, investing in startups across Europe. It supports SaaS and Fintech companies that develop world-leading technology to improve business value chains and productivity. Dawn Capital typically invests between £2 million - £5 million in companies that are expanding internationally and are looking for operational support and capital. Dawn Capital's portfolio companies include Showpad, Collibra, Gelato Group, iControl, Mimecast, Neo Technology, and iZettle, with many others looking to join their ranks. For more information on Dawn Capital, visit www.dawncapital.com.

About Hummingbird Ventures:
Hummingbird Ventures is focused on supporting extraordinary entrepreneurs building fast-growth tech companies. We've teamed up with transformative companies, including Peak Games, Deliveroo, Showpad, Clear2pay, Amplidata, Markavip, Gram Games, Shutl and many others. With a presence in London, Ghent and Istanbul, Hummingbird provides swift access to the operational resources and advice needed to build the tech companies of tomorrow. For information on Hummingbird Ventures please visit www.hummingbirdventures.com.

¹ SiriusDecisions, 2014: https://www.siriusdecisions.com/Blog/2014/Jan/Its-Not-Content--Its-a-Lack-of-Buyer-Insights-Thats-the-Problem.aspx

Contact: [email protected]

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SOURCE Showpad

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