US-based customer experience software provider ActiveCampaign received $240m in series C financing from a host of investors including quantitative trading firm Susquehanna International Group, which committed capital via its Susquehanna Growth Equity (SGE) subsidiary. Other backers of the round were hedge fund manager Tiger Global Management, which led the round, investment firm Dragoneer and growth equity firm Silversmith Capital Partners. The round valued ActiveCampaign above $3bn. The proceeds will be used for product development, international growth and expansion of the company’s partner ecosystem initiatives.
Founded in 2003, ActiveCampaign has developed a customer experience automation (CXA) platform, using machine learning technology to automate customer experience on behalf of businesses. It combines email marketing and marketing automation tools with customer relationship management software, enabling personalised marketing to be delivered across a variety of channels including email, social media, messaging and chat. The platform counts some 145,000 business users who use it.
ActiveCampaign is part of the broader digital marketing and adtech space, which has received much attention from corporate venture investors over the past decade, as shown on the GCV Analytics bar chart below. Over the past few years, the number of corporate-backed deals in that space had remained somewhat flat and in 2020 it even registered a slight drop. Similarly, the total estimated capital in those rounds remained at broadly the same level since 2016, hardly suggesting any surges in valuations. This, however, may change going forward given the overall exuberance and upward pressure in valuations in nearly every innovation space venture capitalists invest in.
