Israel-based marketing software provider Yotpo raised $51m on Wednesday in a series D round led by ClalTech, an investment subsidiary of conglomerate Access Industries.
The round also featured Vertex Ventures, the venture capital arm of Singapore state-owned investment firm Temasek, as well as Bessemer Venture Partners, Marker, Vintage Partners, Blumberg Capital, Rhodium and 2B Angels.
Founded in 2011, Yotpo operates a platform that enables businesses to source, curate and manage customer-generated content such as reviews and photos to use in their marketing campaigns.
The company will invest the cash in product development, with a focus on artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technologies. The cash will also fund an ongoing global expansion that involves the opening of a second US office and the recruitment of 150 staff.
Daniel Shinar, head of Israeli tech investments at Access Industries and CEO of ClalTech, will join Yotpo’s board of directors in conjunction with the round.
Yotpo has now secured $101m in funding to date, most recently closing a $22m series C round in June 2016 led by Bessemer Venture Partners that included Access Industries, Innovation Endeavors, Marker, Vintage Investment Partners and Blumberg Capital.
Access also contributed to Yotpo’s $15m series A round, which was led by Marker and backed by Vintage Investment Partners, Innovation Endeavors and Blumberg Capital, in 2015. Yotpo’s investors also include Gandyr Group, Magna Capital Partners and Plus Ventures.
Tomer Tagrin, chief executive of Yotpo, said: “For us, AI is not a buzzword but a core technology already powering our solution today. But we are also seeing a real opportunity to incorporate deep learning to solve the most pressing challenges of commerce businesses.
“We are just touching the surface of the potential here, and we will have exciting news coming soon.”
– The original version of this article appeared on our sister site, Global Government Venturing.