ESP iContact announced today they’ve secured more VC investment, this time from JMI Equity of Baltimore. Of course this has the blogosphere and Twitterverse all a buzz about how if email is dead, why is so much money going into it? That’s certainly a fair point to make. Here’s what Ryan Allis, CEO and Co-Founder of iContact had to say about it…
Eight years ago, when Aaron Houghton and I met at UNC, we never fathomed we’d have the opportunity to build the nascent iContact into a great global company based here in North Carolina. As iContact passes 225 employees and $40M in annualized sales, we see an opportunity to do something rare — to build a venture-backed IT company here in the Triangle from start-up to IPO. Today, we’re announcing a critical milestone on our journey.
I’m thrilled to share the wonderful news that iContact has closed on $40 million of Series B venture capital funding from JMI Equity of Baltimore, Maryland. We worked with Allen & Company out of New York as our investment bank advisor in this round.
This $40M comes in addition to the $13.3M we’ve raised so far from our investors IDEA Fund Partners, Updata Partners and North Atlantic Capital.
We’ll be using these new funds to make significant investments in sales and marketing, back-end technology, our product features and usability, global expansion, and of course, our people that drive all of our success.
Over the past eight years we have been on a growth spurt, increasing from $2M in annual sales when we raised our first round of funding in May 2006 from IDEA Fund Partners in Durham, to $40M in annual sales four years later. We have been fortunate to find great people to join us at iContact as employees and investors. We would not have been able to get to this point without the amazing team that is with us.
For us, this is just the beginning of building a company that will be here in North Carolina for many decades to come. iContact’s vision is to “build a great global company, based here in North Carolina, for our customers, employees and community.”
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