Extole offers a SaaS-based referral marketing platform that enables companies to acquire customers at scale by rewarding existing customers. Led by CEO Matt Roche, the platform serves over 500 retail, financial services, and consumer subscription brands. Customer examples cited include Advance Auto Parts, Intuit, Kraft, Seamless and Vistaprint. The company plans to continue developing new functionality for its product. Extole intends to use new funding to further accelerate growth among large national and international brands. The article positions the company as focused on expanding features and market reach for enterprise customers. Extole offers a referral-marketing platform that enables companies to launch customizable "recommend us to your friend and get a reward" campaigns on websites and mobile, with analytics to monitor and optimize performance. The company narrowed its product suite to focus exclusively on referral marketing after Matt Roche became CEO and added Mark Cyster as CTO and Chris Duskin as VP of marketing. Extole began onboarding beta customers over the summer and reports 35 companies are now using the platform. The company plans to make the platform generally available early next year. As an example of effectiveness, Extole says it is driving 10% of American Giant’s e-commerce transactions. The new funding will support the company as it shifts from research to commercialization. Extole offers a platform that helps businesses find their best advocates across owned assets (website, ecommerce, social channels, and email) and rewards them to promote the brand to friends on social networks. The company added Facebook Open Graph “social expressions” in a June product update so customers can post actions like “want it,” “tried it,” or “recommend.” Extole says it drives a higher percentage of customers to spread word-of-mouth and to drive traffic and conversions. Its customers include eHarmony, Spotify, Cache, Seventh Generation and HSN Improvements. The company launched a new version of its platform in June and plans to roll out an additional new product in the first half of 2013. Financially, Extole has raised a total of $29.9 million to date following the new funding announced in this article. Extole offers a suite of social media marketing products, including Refer-A-Friend and SocialBuilder, to help brands run referral programs, viral promotions, and measure social engagement. Its technology supports social referrals, promotions, testimonials and social analytics to drive measurable increases in sales and brand awareness. Customers include Shutterfly, Redbox, Zazzle, AAA, Kate Spade, and SkyMall. The company reported revenue growth of 400% last year and was on track for record revenue in 2012. Extole was founded by Brad Klaus, former chief executive of Syndero and former VP of Sales at Qualys. The company plans to use new funding to fuel growth, scale operations, and accelerate product and platform investments. Extole offers a suite of social media marketing tools under its "Social Marketing as a Service Platform," including products such as Refer-A-Friend and SocialBuilder. The products enable brands to leverage referral marketing services and viral Facebook sweepstakes apps to increase sales and brand awareness in a measurable way. Reference clients mentioned in the article include Drugstore.com, Roku and Vistaprint. The company was originally established in 2007 and has been rebranded from TellAPal/TellAPall to Extole; Brad Klaus is founder and CEO. Extole announced it has secured $5 million in a Series A round and plans to use the funding mostly for hiring and product enhancements.

Total raised

$42M

Funding rounds

5

Latest round

Series C

Latest activity

Dec 2014