Yext, a company that helps local businesses synchronize their listings across 50 different sites, just announced that it has raised $27 million in Series E funding.
Yext did not provide a valuation, but a source close to the company tells me that it was $270 million. The round was led Marker, a new fund launched by Rick Scanlon, founder of Crescent Point Capital Group. CrunchFund (whose investor AOL owns TechCrunch) also participated, as did past investors Sutter Hill Ventures, Institutional Venture Partners, and WGI Group.
The company demonstrated at the TechCrunch50 conference in 2009, an appearance that CEO Howard Lerman credits with landing Yext a $25 million round shortly after. At the time, Yext was in a different business — a pay-per-call advertising service which it spun off earlier this year into a wholly-owned subsidiary called Felix.
Now Yext is focused on its PowerListings service, which businesses use to make sure their information is up-to-date on all the different local search and listings sites across the Web. Yext says that it has powered 950,000 different location updates for 50,000 businesses. The updates include:
There’s a new version coming next week, Lerman says, and the funding will be used to further develop the product. Yext, which is based in New York, may also be opening an office in Silicon Valley.
The company has now raised a total of more than $65 million. As for possible exits, Lerman claims, “Our exit strategy is to build a great company.” He admits that may sound a little generic, but he emphasizes that it’s particularly important for Yext to stay independent, because that allows it to work with many different publishers in a “neutral” fashion.
Yext is the market-leading location software company that lets businesses update and sync their location data everywhere. Tens of thousands of businesses, including 10 of the Fortune 100 use Yext to update their location data and instantly sync it on dozens of search engines, mobile apps, ad platforms, and their own sites. Yext – Update Once. Updates Everywhere. Yext is located in New York, NY.
Howard Lerman is co-founder and CEO of Yext. Howard Lerman is a serial entrepreneur who has helped lead three previous ventures, all of which have had successful exits. He has led Yext into the clear market leader for location software. Yext software lets businesses update and sync their location data everywhere. Howard founded and sold his first startup, JustaTip.com from his dorm room at Duke University. He then co-founded Intwine, a technology consulting firm – later selling to Datran Media...
CrunchFund is an early stage venture capital firm founded by Michael Arrington, Patrick Gallagher, and MG Siegler. The fund invests in and works with information technology companies at any stage but is primarily focused on seed and early stage investments. The firm raised its inaugural $20 million fund in September of 2011. Investors in CrunchFund include AOL, Accel Partners, Austin Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Greylock Partners, Redpoint Ventures, Sequoia Capital, the founding partners of Andreessen Horowitz, each of...
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