Sideqik, an Atlanta based influencer marketing and social engagement platform company that helps brands connect deeper with customers, had announced it raised $5 million in Series A funding.
This round of funding was led by Jackson Square Ventures. Fuqua Capital and Tom Noonan (Internet Security Systems co-founder and director for ICE/NYSE and Manhattan Associates) also participated in this round. Existing investors Bee Partners and Bonfire Ventures joined as well.
Using the funding, Sideqik will hire more than 60 employees for its headquarters in Atlanta along with offices in Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Europe.
Photo: Sideqik
With its technology, customers are able to understand who is influencing their brand, competition, and market. And with these insights, customers are able to build authentic relationships with influencers. Sideqik works with some of the largest and most innovative brands including Coca-Cola, Universal Music, Procter & Gamble, Under Armour, Turner, and Home Depot.
In the past two years, Sideqik saw its sales jump by nearly 900%. And the company’s innovations around artificial intelligence to power its marketing insights and engagement is one of the biggest reasons why the company was named one of the 10 Most Innovative Companies by the Technology Association of Georgia.
“Marketers today are overwhelmed by the amount of data at their disposal,” said Sideqik co-founder and CEO Jeremy Haile in a statement. “The challenge is using that data to make decisions and improving how they engage with their customers and the influencers that speak to them. As consumer attention shifts more and more to mobile and social, it’s increasingly important that brands are able to engage with them there, and it’s our mission to provide an innovative platform that helps them do that in an intelligent, authentic, and measurable way.”
Going forward, Sideqik is planning to continue innovating through its products by using AI-driven intelligence in order to help brands better understand consumers, competition, and the market as informed by more than sixteen million online profiles and over two billion social posts. And Sideqik is also adding their first predictive analytics capabilities, which will allow marketers to better understand the trends driving their brands, influencers, and marketplace.
“Social engagement and influencer marketing have emerged as the fastest growing segment of the marketing technology stack,” added Jackson Square founding partner and managing director Greg Gretsch. “We’re excited to partner with Sideqik on their mission to help companies adapt to this connected world we live in, and to engage with their customers in a better, more authentic, and more engaging way.”
