Fintech & e-commerce Retail and Direct To Consumer

SoftBank-Backed Contentsquare Valued At $2.8B Following $500M Series E

A year after its $190 million Series D, Contentsquare is back with an even bigger round, closing on $500 million in Series E financing to value the company at $2.8 billion.

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SoftBank Vision Fund 2 led the new funding and joins existing investors Eurazeo Growth, Bpifrance, KKR, Canaan Partners and Highland Europe, as well as funds and accounts managed by BlackRock Private Equity Partners, all of which also participated in the round. The Series E brings Contentsquare’s total funding to $810 million since forming in 2012, the company said.

As part of the investment, Michel Combes, president of SoftBank Group International, will join Contentsquare’s board of directors.

Paris-based Contentsquare developed a cloud-based platform for businesses to create better customer experiences by analyzing customer behavior via anonymous web, mobile and app interactions. It then provides intelligent recommendations aimed at increasing user conversion, revenue, engagement and growth.

Company founder and CEO Jonathan Cherki told Crunchbase News that despite the tough year, one positive that emerged was the acceleration of digitization globally.

He points to data that shows China is expected to make more online sales than offline sales this year, and he expects the U.S. to grow as well. E-commerce penetration of total retail sales hit 21.3 percent in the U.S. in 2020, up from 15.8 percent in 2019.

“There is a momentum and good opportunity with this market,” he added. “We found the best way to improve online sales is through customer acquisition. Traffic is all on mobile, so retailers needed to think about improving the experience. It went from a nice to have to a must have.”

Contentsquare saw 100 percent year-over-year revenue growth over the past four years, with 50 percent of the business currently being generated in the U.S., Cherki said. The company is working with 750 customers, about a third of which are among the Fortune 500, he added. Within the past year, it also acquired two companies — DareBoost and Adapt My Web.

It also analyzed tens of billions of customer interactions every day across sites that process $1.5 billion in transactions daily.

The new funding will enable the company to expand in the U.S. and Europe, with plans to launch in new territories including Asia and Latin America. It also wants to do more M&A activities and further develop its go-to-market strategy. To do this, Contentsquare intends to hire 1,500 people in three years, Cherki said.

“That is one of the rationales of getting SoftBank on board,” he added. “They have great experience in international expansion.”

Illustration: Li-Anne Dias

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