VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwire - Sept. 16, 2011) - HootSuite continues an incredible pace for growth and development this year with a new round of financing, additions to the executive team and the acquisition of a social storage tool. These developments will help HootSuite to continue to grow into a comprehensive social media management system equipped to serve Enterprise business and individual power users alike.
Financing
In less than one year after launching its Freemium business model, HootSuite is a profitable, cashflow-positive company with a $8 million run rate (estimated $10 million by end of year). To accelerate this growth, the company has closed $3 million debt bridge financing. The company previously raised $1.95 million in Dec. 2009.
The funds were raised from current insiders Hearst Interactive Media, Blumberg Capital, and super angel Geoff Entress, with new participation from Millennium Technology Ventures. This financing will allow HootSuite to continue hiring top sales, marketing, engineering and executive talent (currently 60 FTE a 400% 1 year growth), engage in advertising efforts, make acquisitions and continue to scale their offering to meet the demand of the rapidly increasing user base, which surpassed 2 million users in June 2011.
Acquisition
Following previous acquisitions of SwiftApp (now HootSuite for Android), and TwitterBar (now HootBar), HootSuite is proud to announce a new strategic acquisition of TwapperKeeper.com. This social storage and reporting tools is used heavily by academic organizations, conference leaders, marketing departments, customer service teams and PR companies to archive track, monitor, and analyze Twitter data. CEO and Developer John O'Brien will serve as a consultant on the integration of this app within the HootSuite dashboard.
Executive Appointments
The executive team at HootSuite is expanding with the following appointments:
Steve Johnson CRO – bringing experience as VP of Channel Partners from Constant Contact and Blackbaud, Steve will head up HootSuite channels.
Darren Suomi VP of Sales – with experience as Global VP - Enterprise Sales at SAP AG and Sales Director as Business Objects, Darren will oversee Enterprise Sales team.
Greg Gunn VP of Business Development – already working with HootSuite over the past few months, Greg is now responsible for building relationships as he did at Terapeak, Research Advanced, TeamPages.com and Idea Builders.
HootSuite will continue to make several other key hires listed on the company's careers website as the team grows to a targeted 80 hires by end of year, http://hootsuite.com/careers
More Information:
Blog Post: http://blog.hootsuite.com/raise-acquisition-executive
Media Kit: http://blog.hootsuite.com/media
CrunchBase: http://www.crunchbase.com/company/hootsuite
Contact Information:
Dave Olson
media@hootsuite.com
@daveohoots