Content Square closes a $42 million funding round
The French digital experience optimisation platform secures funds to continue its expansion in the United States and Europe
Paris, France (29 January 2018) – ContentSquare, the French digital experience optimisation platform, announced today that it has closed a funding round of 42 million dollars with Canaan, an American venture capital firm known for its remarkable investments in LendingClub, Ebates and Match.com. The round also includes Highland Europe, Eurazeo, H14 and Seed4Soft. The funding will be used to grow Contentsquare's business in the United States and Europe. In 191 countries, the ContentSquare platform gives brands strategic information about the journeys their users take, so as to alert them to the performance of every element of their websites, mobile sites and apps, take optimisation decisions and increase conversion. Used by content, e-commerce, analytics, acquisition, IT and of course UX teams, ContentSquare is on the way to becoming the first digital experience optimisation platform fully automated through artificial intelligence.
"ContentSquare exists to help companies understand how and why customers interact with their website, phone and apps. Using that data, our first aim is to improve the digital experience of consumers and, of course, to grow our clients' sales," comments Jonathan Cherki, CEO of ContentSquare. "By creating innovative technologies that improve and automate digital experience analysis, and through contracts with the best brands and retailers worldwide, we have quickly become digital teams' secret weapon. This round reinforces the value we bring our clients, and we are very happy to announce that we will keep growing." Beyond increasing site conversion, ContentSquare is set on giving digital teams a platform that lets them measure the impact of their actions and move revenue.
The round follows a first Series A of 20 million dollars closed in the autumn of 2016 by Highland Europe and backed by angel investors such as Seed4soft. Since then, ContentSquare has expanded internationally, opened American offices in New York, hired more than 200 employees, grown revenue by more than 150%, and won 120 new clients such as Carrefour, Club Med, BNP Paribas, Place des Tendances, LVMH, Clarins, SFR, Bouygues Immobilier and Intermarché in France, Real and Tom Tailor in Germany, Thalys, AO.com, MatchesFashion, Avis, Clarks, Photobox and Boohoo.com in the United Kingdom, and Walmart, Tiffany's, Birchbox and Goldman Sachs in the United States.
From the beginning of the adventure, ContentSquare has bet on innovation. The company recently gave its platform an automatic recommendations module built on artificial intelligence. ContentSquare is also the first publisher to free teams from tedious configuration in order to track site activity. Through Auto-Zone, every element of a site is detected automatically so as to give digital teams fast data on the performance of the experiences offered to users. Yann du Rusquec, Managing Director, head of Eurazeo Croissance, says: "It is with great enthusiasm that we join the capital of Content Square today, a company we have followed for a long time with great admiration. A pioneer in a booming UX market, Content Square is growing spectacularly in Europe and the United States, and it seems without limit! For Eurazeo Croissance, this investment is an extraordinary opportunity to support over the long term a success story whose reach crosses one border after another."
About ContentSquare
ContentSquare is a user experience analysis and optimisation platform for brands wanting to understand how users interact with their websites, mobile sites and apps. Beyond understanding and analysing user intentions, digital teams can take decisions informed by customer knowledge to optimise browsing journeys, through a platform designed to be used without technical skills and equipped with an automatic recommendations tool built on artificial intelligence. Founded in 2012, ContentSquare counts more than 200 clients worldwide such as Voyages-sncf.com, L'Occitane, Walmart, Priceminister and Orange. ContentSquare is present in Paris, London, New York and Munich.
About Canaan Partners
Canaan Partners is a venture capital firm that invests in entrepreneurs with visionary ideas. With more than 4.2 billion dollars and more than 190 diversified funds to date, Canaan has invested for 30 years in the world's most innovative technology and healthcare companies. Canaan's areas of expertise include fintech, SaaS, commerce, e-commerce, biopharma, digital health and medtech. To find out more: www.canaan.com
About Highland Europe
Founded in 2012, Highland Europe invests in growth-stage European technology companies in the internet, mobile and software markets. The firm, which has more than 580 million euros of assets under management across two funds, works with Highland Capital Partners, the independent international venture capital firm that founded it. Highland Europe is based in London and Geneva. Its current portfolio includes MatchesFashion.com, GetYourGuide, WeTransfer, NEXThink and Malwarebytes, among many others.
About Eurazeo
Eurazeo is a leading global investment company, based in Paris and Luxembourg, New York, Shanghai and São Paulo, with around 8 billion euros of assets under management. Its mission is to detect, accelerate and build the transformation potential of the companies it invests in. Eurazeo is present across various private equity segments through its five business divisions: Eurazeo Capital, Eurazeo Croissance, Eurazeo PME, Eurazeo Patrimoine and Eurazeo Brands. Its institutional and family shareholder base, its solid financial structure free of structural debt and its flexible investment horizon let it support companies over the long term. A long-term shareholder, Eurazeo brings the companies it backs deep sector experience, privileged access to global markets and an approach to value creation founded on growth. > Eurazeo is listed on Euronext Paris. > ISIN: FR0000121121 – Bloomberg: RF FP – Reuters: EURA.PA
About Seed4soft
Seed4soft is a club of software experts with an unmatched depth of experience in the field. Operating like a fund, Seed4soft brings together 20 B2B software entrepreneurs and company directors investing together in promising startups at the seed stage.