Piano, a global analytics, personalization and subscription platform, announced it has raised $88 million in funding led by existing investors Updata Partners and with supporting investments from Rittenhouse Ventures and LinkedIn.
The company’s previous funding round, which preceded its acquisition of Norway-based data management platform Cxense, was a $22 million Series B in January 2019 also led by Updata Partners.
Since this previous investment round, Piano has grown their revenue by nearly 400%, further expanded into the Asia-Pacific region, integrated its customer journey and data management capabilities and also acquired France-based analytics platform AT Internet, the statement said.
“The past two years have been an extraordinary period of growth for Piano as we’ve added new capabilities to our platform and grown into new markets,” said Trevor Kaufman, CEO of Piano. “This funding, and the addition of LinkedIn as a strategic investor, will help us continue investing in the best technology and world-class talent, enabling our clients to create compelling, data-driven customer experiences.”
LinkedIn’s involvement closely follows the Microsoft-owned social networking platform’s own impressive growth and its increased investment in its consumer-focused business via content creation and sharing. LinkedIn’s total revenue grew by 25% year-over-year, fueled by conversations on the platform increasing by 43% and sessions growing 29% with record engagement.
“As we work to surface high-quality content and conversations as a strategy to increase user growth and engagement, Piano’s leadership in the content commerce space makes them a natural, strategic investment opportunity,” said Scott Roberts, VP and Head of Business Development at LinkedIn. “We know publishers are increasingly seeing referral traffic from LinkedIn fuel subscription sign-ups, and we only see this growing as we partner more closely with Piano.”
The new funds will be used for Piano’s rapid growth across functions, and particularly its data and analytics offerings bolstered by the company’s recent integration of its data management capabilities with its flagship customer journey orchestration product Composer and acquisition of France-based AT Internet.
“Piano’s recent growth has been outstanding, and we continue to be impressed by the expanding set of capabilities they bring to both media companies and brands looking to drive more revenue from their audiences,” said Jon Seeber, General Partner of Updata Partners and a member of Piano’s Board of Directors. “They now have a true end-to-end platform that can power all aspects of the customer journey, allowing their clients to incorporate only the highest-quality data from across touchpoints to create the best experiences for users.”
Founded in 2015, Piano has shown remarkable gains in a $77B addressable market, netting nearly 1,000 customers globally across six continents.
