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Janrain, the leading provider of social identity management solutions for businesses, today announced it has closed $15.5 million in financing. Emergence Capital Partners led the round, and is joined by previous investors Anthem Venture Partners, DFJ Frontier, RPM Ventures, Tim Draper, and founder Larry Drebes with participation from Square 1 Bank. The investment will be used to add resources and employees across all existing functional teams and further support the accelerated growth the company is experiencing.
Janrain provides SaaS solutions that help organizations increase acquisition and engagement with online users by leveraging the user’s social profile. These solutions, including social login, sharing to social networks and the analytics required to measure and monitor social activities, as well as turnkey registration and social profile storage, are being rapidly adopted by leading brands across many vertical markets. Organizations rely on Janrain to access and store detailed user profiles that can then be utilized to better serve their online customers, personalize campaigns and inform future marketing strategies.
“Social profiles are enabling brands to build deeper, more profitable customer relationships. To take advantage of this opportunity, companies need proven identity management solutions that can handle the complexity of social data,” said Brian Jacobs, General Partner, Emergence Capital. “Janrain is the leader in social identity management with the only SaaS platform that can meet the needs of any online business.”
Janrain received financing of $3.25 million in December 2009. Since that time, the company has grown 300% year over year, and signed thousands of new customers including brands such as MTV, Tribune, Meredith, AMC Networks, Rodale, HarperCollins, Dr. Pepper Snapple Group, Sears, Free People, Avis and Citysearch.
Currently at 60 employees, with over half added since the beginning of the year, Janrain has been rapidly growing its engineering, sales and services teams. The number of deployments of its flagship product, Janrain Engage, has expanded to over 350,000 websites. Strong partnerships with over 15 leading technology providers such as Ning, Kickapps, Get Satisfaction, Blackbaud, and Triton Media have contributed to Janrain’s extensive reach.
Continuing its history of being first to market, Janrain expanded its cloud-based product portfolio, launching social login and sharing for mobile platforms in the spring of 2010, and the industry’s only hosted registration and social profile storage solution, Janrain Capturein the summer of 2010. Along with product expansion, Janrain has entered new verticals such as retail and gaming, and continued to grow its leadership and customer base in the media and entertainment industries.
Customers are increasingly looking to Janrain to solve multiple user management problems and as a result, a growing number of companies such as Universal Music Group, Postmedia Network, Whole Foods, National Geographic and Kodak, are purchasing multiple products and expanding their deployment of Janrain solutions.
“We are excited by the speed with which our solutions are being adopted by major brands, and this momentum has attracted Emergence Capital, the firm that has helped fund and build today’s leading SaaS companies,” said Larry Drebes, CEO, Janrain. “Social identity is experiencing explosive growth. As the pioneer of this market, we will leverage this investment capital to continue to drive the market forward and accelerate product innovation.”
Theodore is the Co-Founder and Managing Editor of TravelDailyNews Media Network; his responsibilities include business development and planning for TravelDailyNews long-term opportunities.
