13x return for London Business Angels and its Associates from partial exit in Brandwatch
Brighton based social media monitoring specialist, Brandwatch, has raised $22m in new funding. The Series B round was led by new investors Highland Capital Partners with participation from existing investors including Nauta Capital and Gorkana Group. This round brings the total raised to date by Brandwatch to just under $30m. London Business Angels (www.lbangels.co.uk) investors and its Associates at the time own a significant minority stake in the company, having invested over £500k together during 2006 and 2007.
Brandwatch is one of the world’s leading social media monitoring and analytics technology platforms. It harvests millions of online conversations every day and provides clients with the tools to analyse them, empowering brands and agencies to make smarter, data-driven business decisions. The Brandwatch platform is used by over 1000 brands and agencies, including Whole Foods, Verizon, Pepsico, British Airways and Dell.
“Social data is the oil of the tech world right now, and we’re betting big on our own technology platform,” said Giles Palmer, Brandwatch CEO “Our reputation as the expert’s social intelligence platform is only as good as our technology which is why we plan to funnel this investment directly into our Engineering department across the board. “Our partnership with Highland will help fuel Brandwatch’s lightning-paced growth on a global level, especially in New York City and San Francisco.”
Anthony Clarke, London Business Angels CEO, comments; ” The explosive growth of Brandwatch over the past seven years has repaid the faith we all had in Giles Palmer and his Brandwatch team as initial seed/early stage investors. The closing of this significant round allows Brandwatch to become a pre-eminent global tech company. The LBA Angel investors and its Associates from 2007 which included a Government backed Seed Fund have been able to realise a partial exit on up to 30% of their initial £500k seed investment at a circa 13x multiple. This transaction represents an excellent example of how much needed liquidity can be returned to the UK’s early stage eco-system for further investment in our new technology start ups”.
