LookBookHQ, Inc., the pioneer in content marketing automation, today announced that it has raised Series A funding of $4 million USD. The round was led by Edison Partners, with participation from Hyde Park Venture Partners. The company will use the funds to fuel its rapid growth and expand the development of its content marketing automation platform and proprietary Content Science™ recommendation engine. In addition to investing in sales and marketing, the company plans to expand its workforce in the U.S. and add key roles in Toronto.
B2B marketers continue to invest heavily in content production and the promotion of content across channels – but struggle to repeatedly attract buyer attention. This is a key reason in why 70% of B2B content goes unused according to SiriusDecisions and why the Content Marketing Institute reports that only 30% of B2B marketers believe their content marketing efforts are effective. The LookBookHQ content automation platform solves this problem by capitalizing on buyer attention and letting engaged prospects “binge’ on relevant content in the same session.
“Our rapid acquisition of nearly 100 mid-market and enterprise customers and 2.4X ARR growth over the last 12 months clearly signals the unmet need of B2B marketers when it comes to capitalizing on attention and keeping prospects engaged,” says Mark Opauszky, Co-Founder and CEO of LookBookHQ. “While we’ve achieved a lot to date, we have a big vision for the company and we’re very excited to be working with Edison and Hyde Park to realize that vision. We believe that their experience with marketing technology portfolio companies such as Terminus, TripleLift, Offerpop and Magnetic will be invaluable in helping us take LookBookHQ to the next level.”
“We’re incredibly impressed with what the team at LookBookHQ has been able to accomplish with very little funding to date and we’re confident that our partnership will help to catapult them to the next level of growth” says Gregg Michaelson, Partner at Edison Partners. “Content is at the heart of everything marketers do and we’re bullish on the content marketing automation category. We share LookBookHQ’s vision of a huge market opportunity for smarter, more engaging content experiences.”
“From the moment I saw the LookBookHQ platform, I knew it was a ‘must have’ for CMO’s” says Tim Kopp, Partner at Hyde Park Venture Partners and former CMO of ExactTarget. “They have the most powerful solution in the market for addressing the pain point of creating targeted, relevant content that truly fulfills the promise of 1:1 marketing. I look forward to partnering with the team to create an entirely new category of software for marketers that allows them to better connect with their customers and drive true and meaningful engagement.”
LookBookHQ helps B2B marketers cultivate more informed, sales-ready buyers faster, by ensuring they always see the next most relevant content asset wherever and whenever they click. In an analysis of customer results, LookBookHQ found that visitors who consumed multiple assets per session via their platform were 2.4X likely to be accepted by sales, move 2.3X faster through the funnel and result in 2.4X average contract values.
“Using LookBookHQ to enhance our lead nurturing campaigns, 48% of visitors now binge on multiple assets, resulting in 71% more time spent with our content” says Alexandre Papillaud, Marketing Director, Global Demand Center at Intel Security. “Delivering up to 2.5X more content per click has not only helped us increase conversion rates by 3X and accelerate the path to purchase by making buyer education frictionless, it has also cut the time it takes to create a new nurture from 7 days to 3-4 hours. This is demand generation 2.0 and it has completely changed the way I think about nurturing our prospects.”
About LookBookHQ
Successful B2B marketers move their buyers – both known prospects and anonymous visitors – through a journey of relevant content to educate and influence their purchase decisions. LookBookHQ lets marketers deliver these content journeys faster and more effectively by automating the sequence and delivery of content into highly engaging, personalized experiences that allow buyers to consume multiple assets per session and help marketers cultivate and identify sales-ready prospects.
Seamlessly integrating with existing marketing systems like Oracle Eloqua and Marketo, the LookBookHQ platform is an integral part of a next generation content marketing and demand generation infrastructure. Revenue-focused marketers from nearly 100 mid-market and enterprise companies, including Thomson Reuters, Intel Security, Vodafone, Adobe and Western Union have revolutionized their approach to removing friction from the buying process and keeping buyers engaged with LookBookHQ. Headquartered in Toronto, LookBookHQ has delivered stellar results for its customers since its launch in 2013 and helped them win multiple marketing awards, and was itself a 2016 Marketo LaunchPoint Partner of the Year finalist.
About Edison Partners
For 30 years, Edison Partners has been helping CEOs and their executive teams navigate the entrepreneurial journey and build successful companies. Through the unique combination of expansion capital and the Edison Edge platform, consisting of strategic advisory, the Edison Director Network, and executive education, Edison employs a holistic approach to nurturing invention and creating value for growth stage businesses ($5 to $20 million in revenue) in financial technology, healthcare IT, enterprise IT, and marketing technology industries. Edison investment objectives also include: buyouts, recapitalizations, spinouts and secondary stock purchases.
Edison’s active portfolio has created aggregate market value exceeding $5 billion. Its long-tenured team, based in Princeton, NJ, manages more than $1 billion in assets throughout the eastern United States.
About Hyde Park Venture Partners
Hyde Park Venture Partners (HPVP) is an early stage venture capital firm focused on software startups in the Midwest. With offices in Chicago and Indianapolis – and a network of advisors throughout the region – HPVP invests in proven startups that have talented management teams and fast growth. HPVP’s sweetspot is investing in B2B software and consumer marketplace startups raising a Series A round of capital.
