Harbottle & Lewis advises Brandwatch on $22m funding round led by Highland Capital Partners Europe
Harbottle & Lewis has advised Brandwatch, one of the world’s leading social media analytics and listening companies, on its $22 million funding round led by new investor Highland Capital Partners Europe with significant participation from Nauta Capital and other existing investors.
Highland’s investment follows a previous round of $6 million led by Nauta Capital in 2012 as well as earlier investment from the Gorkana Group, both in relation to which Harbottle & Lewis previously advised.
After another year of more than 100% growth, Brandwatch plans to use the funding to double its product and engineering teams, to triple its investment in physical infrastructure, and to significantly accelerate implementation of new data sources with a particular focus on emerging social platforms in Asia. The company will also continue to capitalise on its rapid international and North American expansion where over 1,000 brands, including 30 Fortune 100 companies, currently use its social intelligence platform to gather and manage actionable, timely insights from the social web.
As the impact of social media has quickly spread throughout nearly all departments of an organisation, Brandwatch has continued to expand its product reach from marketing intelligence into product research, real-time customer service and reputation management.
Commenting on the deal, Tony Littner, Head of the Firm’s Venture Capital Group, said: “We acted for Brandwatch on its initial business angel investment back in 2006 and have been advising the company ever since. The Brandwatch story is a great example of what we like to do – working closely with talented entrepreneurs from the very early stages right the way through the lifecycle of their company”.
Giles Palmer, Brandwatch CEO, said: “This was another important moment in the evolution of the company. As with previous deals, Tony Littner and his team at Harbottle guided us through the process with very few undesired bumps along the way. They had our backs throughout and were an important part of our team.”
The Harbottle & Lewis team that worked on the transaction was led by Tony Littner and included tax Partner David Scott and Corporate Associate Felix Wong.
