Impact, a Santa Barbara, California-based leader in partnership automation company, announced it raised $75 million in funding led by Providence Strategic Growth (PSG) — which is the growth equity affiliate of Providence Equity Partners.
“Impact has provided the industry and its customers with a powerful, integrated platform that we believe has now become the premier Partnership Automation software available,” noted PSG managing director Marco Ferrari. “We’re excited to invest in and partner with Impact as they grow and develop new technologies to automate, scale and optimize partnership programs for enterprises worldwide.”
The new funding round will fuel platform development, further go-to-market and regional expansion, and accelerate organic and inorganic growth. Existing investor Silversmith Capital Partners also participated in this round.
Partnerships are known as the third major growth driver for business following sales and marketing. And analysts and enterprise leaders recognize that partnerships are a significant source of incremental growth and new revenue streams.
“There’s been an explosion of innovation around new types of partnerships being forged to grow enterprise revenue,” said Impact CEO David A. Yovanno in a statement. “Beyond Ticketmaster building native software integration partnerships with social media platforms, Impact enables a marketplace of hospitality services to establish partnerships with airlines. A fashion-forward sportswear brand to partner with YouTube influencers. A major direct-to-consumer mattress brand to establish partnerships with chiropractors. Barkbox, another fast-growing direct-to-consumer business, to establish partnerships with animal shelters, veterinary clinics, dog walkers and pet hotels for their pet care subscription boxes. The types of emerging partnerships supported by Impact’s Partnership Cloud are virtually limitless.”
Impact’s Partnership CloudTM platform can be used for automating partnership discovery, recruitment, engagement, and optimization. And Impact’s most mature clients leverage the Partnership Cloud to transform their organizations and partnership initiatives for expanding across all types of partnerships ranging from traditional affiliates to influencers to strategic B2B partnerships.
“We have seen brands double-down on direct sales and marketing investments such as CRM and marketing automation over the past 20 years. With over 75 percent of world trade flowing indirectly, Forrester believes the third stage of enterprise growth will revolve around paving the last mile to the customer through partners and alliances,” said Forrester’s Principal Analyst of Global Channels Jay McBain in a statement.
Impact is especially known for accelerating enterprise growth by scaling discovery, recruitment, onboarding, engagement, and optimization of all partnership types. Plus Impact’s Partnership CloudTM provides automation for the full partnership lifecycle.
“This announcement follows a landmark year for Impact, in which they completed the acquisition of Mediarails, the leading CRM for influencer discovery, recruitment and optimization; continued their global expansion by opening local offices in Singapore and the Nordics; and expanded their leadership team,” said Jim Quagliaroli, Managing Partner of Silversmith Capital Partners. “We’re excited to add to our existing investment and to have PSG join us in this next stage of Impact’s growth.”
And Impact drives revenue growth for global enterprises like Cabela’s, Fanatics, Getty Images, Lenovo, Levi’s, Shutterstock, Techstyle, and Ticketmaster. Since the company was founded in Santa Barbara back in 2008, Impact grew to more than 400 employees and 10 offices across the U.S., Europe, and Asia.
“Impact’s platform allows us to create and scale direct partnerships to drive new revenue more efficiently than in the past,” explained Ticketmaster’s SVP & GM, Distributed Commerce Dan Armstrong. “We’ve enabled discovery and purchase of the largest ticket inventory in the world through unique partnerships with social media platforms, music streaming services and major publishers on a global scale. Impact helps us understand the value we create through these partners, allowing us to focus more of our time on innovation.”
