Boston’s WordStream, which provides search engine marketing software, has raised $12 million in new funding. Chicago-based Baird Capital, the direct investment arm of Robert W. Baird and Co., led the round, with participation from existing investor and local venture firm Sigma Partners. Of Wednesday’s round, $9 million is classified as Series C venture capital, with an additional $3 million in venture debt, proffered by City National Bank.
Since current WordStream CTO Larry Kim founded the company in 2007, the firm has raised $28.4 million in total venture capital. Most recently, WordStream raised $6 million, also listed as Series C, in July 2012.
The company’s most acclaimed – and free – product is the AdWords Performance Grader, which shows marketers how their AdWords landing pages perform against pay-per-click best practices and other industry benchmarks. The new capital will be put towards continuing to build upon this offering and creating new software to enable small- to medium-sized businesses to discover leads easily and better manage their growth.
“We’re very proud of the confidence we’ve inspired,” said Ralph J. Folz, CEO of WordStream, in a statement. “This funding is largely a response to our continued growth, particularly that of the AdWords Performance Grader, which is now grading three-quarters of a billion dollars in paid search spend every month. We’ll be able to use the new funding to further accelerate development of our full suite of offerings.”
The novel financing furthers WordStream’s momentum and growth. The company claims that its client base has quadrupled over the past two years. For the past three years, WordStream’s revenue has also multiplied by a factor of ten. Internally, the company has built out its team to 100. It plans to add a third floor to its 177 Huntington compound in the Back Bay in December in anticipation of a hiring push.
Image via WordStream
