Banjo, the US-based developer of a real-time social network-based location discovery platform, closed a $100m series C round led by telecommunications and internet company SoftBank yesterday.
The round, which also included venture capital firm Bluerun Ventures, took the company’s overall funding to approximately $121m. Banjo raised $16m from Bluerun, Balderton Capital and Vegas Tech Fund in March 2014.
Founded in 2011, Banjo is developing technology that can organise the world’s social signals by location.
The company’s initial aim was to allow people to track their friends geographically but it has since expanded the platform to follow and source information for specific events worldwide, providing information to corporate and media customers.
Damien Patton, Banjo’s founder and chief executive, said: “I am excited to partner with SoftBank. Masayoshi Son, Softbank’s founder and CEO, is one of the most successful entrepreneurs of our generation.
“Nikesh Arora, Softbank’s Vice Chairman, was part of Google’s last 10 years and most recently chief business officer, widely acknowledged as the foremost business strategist in the valley. I look forward to learning from both of them and leveraging their expertise.”
The funding will support an expansion in Banjo’s engineering and data scientist workforce.