Bitly sells a majority stake to Spectrum Equity for $63M

Bitly is announcing that it has raised $63 million in additional funding from Spectrum Equity — a deal that gives the growth equity firm a majority stake in Bitly.

Founded in 2008, the company was initially known for providing a handy link shortening tool for anyone with a Twitter account, but it’s now focused on using link shortening as a way to provide more control and data to businesses.

Bitly’s products now include branded short links, analytics on the identity and activity of whoever’s interacting with those links and device-aware mobile deep links that are designed to drive app installs and re-engagement. Customers include what Bitly says is “close to three quarters of the Fortune 500.”

According to CrunchBase, Bitly’s last venture funding round was back in 2012. As part of the new deal, Spectrum’s Pete Jensen and Parag Khandelwal are joining Bitly CEO Mark Josephson (who took over in 2014) on the board of directors.

“Bitly is one of the strongest brands on the internet and has achieved a level of ubiquity rarely seen,” Jensen said in the announcement. “Mark and the leadership team at Bitly have done a great job turning the company from ‘free only’ to a fast growing and profitable freemium SaaS company. We’re excited to provide the capital, support and experience to help scale the business to the next level.”