The current round has been led by led by Georgian Partners along with Spark Capital, OpenView Venture Partners, Scout Ventures and Jason Calacanis’ Launch Fund. The company has raised $36.5 Million since its founding in mid-2010. Earlier funders included Google Ventures.

Signpost’s evolution has been a dramatic one, fully reflecting the changes in local online marketing. The company launched as a provider of sales agents for local SMB deals, then evolved into an SMB-oriented SAAS company with offices in New York, Austin and Denver. In its case, deals gave way to a broad range of marketing services, including analytics, marketing automation, loyalty marketing, referrals and review acquistion.

The company now serves over 10,000 customers, and says it is eyeing a large customer set of six million very small businesses with 2-10 employees. Most of these have not previously had access to CRM and are unlikely to subscribe to pricey CRM tools such as Salesforce. Monthly fees are around $189.

The inclusion of financial transaction information provided by a third party is something that is increasingly being added to marketing services. Google, ForwardLine and others similarly incorporate financial transaction information.

The post Signpost Raises $20.5 Million to Provide CRM-Based SMB Services appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

We’ve long seen scheduling as a possible anchor for SMB marketing services (coupons, leads, promotions, analytics, upsells et al). Obviously, we are not alone. More than 75 players are positioning themselves to lead the way in scheduling, including MindBody, Booker, Intuit, ReachLocal, Yodle, Square, GenBook, Agendize, Schedulicity, Moon Valley Software, MaxiPage, Hakema and others.

An alternative approach to the space has been taken by PingUp, a new player that just launched this week, and three- year- old MyTime. Both players have focused primarily on searching, aggregating and confirming online appointments from scheduling providers, while adding in marketing services as an additional layer.

From its inception, however, MyTime has also positioned itself up as an intermediary and a media and commerce channel in its own right. Now, MyTime has crossed the line, armed with a new round of $9.25 Million from Khosla, Upfront Ventures, shopping mall giant Westfield and others — on top of $3 Million raised in 2012.

While it will continue to aggregate and work with other scheduling providers, the 100 person, San Francisco-based company will also compete directly against them via two products: MyTime Scheduler, a sophisticated scheduling program; and MyTime Marketplace, a “fully responsive consumer destination to find and book appointments with nearby service businesses.”

The services cost from $9.99 to $39.99 a month, depending on the number of employees supported and types of services taken. The pricing is seen as significantly lower than other scheduling software providers.

CEO Ethan Anderson notes that the launch of MyTime’s Scheduler and Marketplace products is a natural extension of its appointment aggregation service, which is already driving “nearly one million people” a month to its Web site and mobile apps. He contends that the company’s efforts have also been set apart by a more seamless consumer experience.

Driving MyTime’s new strategy is the rapid adoption of mobile tools and services by consumers. “We know consumers prefer to book and pay for things through their smartphones now, but most businesses haven’t made it possible to book them online yet,” says Anderson. “Everyone knows that consumers are ahead of the SMBs.”

Businesses that take leads from MyTime will pay a 37 percent commission. MyTime also provides an attractive 2.69 percent rate for payments, undercutting Square’s 2.75 percent commission.

The company says it has built a relationship with 10,000 businesses, with 1,000 new businesses signing up a month. Anderson hopes to see that number double or triple during the next quarter and converted into paying accounts — due in part, to the new products, and its sales team. “Our goal is to go after the two million local businesses and get them on Scheduler within 5 years,” he says.

MyTime CEO Ethan Anderson

The post MyTime to Compete for Scheduling, SMB Marketing Services appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Gravy just got a nice boost of confidence per its $7.6M Series A round led by new investors Gannett, MetTel and several optimistic existing investors. Gravy is a local-mobile data analytics firms that develops consumer behavioral signals for segmentation and targeting based on participation and interest in local events and activities. The theory Gravy pursues is that this type of profiling provides a new level of accuracy in targeting consumers with behavioral and location signals.

Founded in 2011, Gravy will use its funding round to build out its Gravy GOLD data platform that is driven by verified customer attendance at local events and places. Gravy told us that their clients have developed actionable data gathered from customers motivated to invest their free time to physically attend events and activities provides a strong set of intent signals useful to marketers.

Gravy says its GOLD platform, enables brand marketers to quickly uncover the interests and affinities of individual mobile customers as they live their daily lives and use that knowledge to predict buying intent, deliver personalized engagement, gain granular competitive insights and execute pinpoint, in-the-moment targeting.

The rise of data science, data platforms and marketing analytics is disruptive by changing how marketers and publishers are now transacting on audience inventory rather than media inventory. Gravy makes for an interesting opportunity as it brings a new type of data to the game. Consumer behaviors around events and activities on face value would appear to be useful signals for targeting specific creative messaging and appeals as well as developing a new segmentation strategy.

As programmatic, location and mobile converge around data management platforms and consumer signaling, Gravy could be upping its game at a very relevant point in the industry’s evolution.

The post Gannett, MetTel Back Gravy, Local-Mobile Data Analytics Firm, in $7.6M Series A Raise appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Leading up to the BIA/Kelsey NOW Conference, which will debut in San Francisco this June, we’re kicking off a regular series of blog postings on the Local On-Demand Economy (see our white paper). Twice per week, we’ll wrap notable news, fundings and executive moves in the LODE world.

(Click below for full stories)

Does Elon Musk’s Future Include a Place for Uber?
Uber may be the “greatest job creator” in the world right now, adding 50,000 drivers a month since the beginning of the year. But consider Tesla Founder & CEO Elon Musk’s vision of a world without drivers. In an interview at an NVIDIA conference this week, Musk said: “”In the distant future, I think people may outlaw driving cars because it’s too dangerous. You can’t have a person driving a two-ton death machine.” He predicts driving will eventually be illegal.

Bus rides, by contrast, may not be good LODE targets
Leap Transit launched its high-end bus service in San Francisco this week. A roughly 15-minute ride costs $6 and includes coffee, wi-fi and techie luxuries including an onboard concierge of sorts, according to this entertaining article from The Atlantic’s CityLab. This very unLODE model requires a steep capital investment in buses that appear to include reclaimed wood walls and Starbucks-like seating.

FundBox tackles the accounts receivable space
Accounts receivables delays cost small business significant lost opportunity the longer they drag on. If they can get paid faster, the revenue can be redeployed for growth, marketing and other purposes. FundBox, a San Francisco startup announced a $17.5 million round of financing from Khosla Ventures, Ron Conway’s SV Angel and other individual investors, to address this painful business problem.

Meanwhile, is syndication working magic for BuzzFeed?
At South by SouthWest in Austin, Texas, this week BuzzFeed founder Johan Peretti explained that he has effectively outsourced his site hosting to social networks where his company’s content is shared by users. While BuzzFeed.com attracts approximately 200 million users each month, its syndication network, which includes Facebook and Twitter, generates 18.5 billion impressions a month.

FULL STORIES

Does Elon Musk’s Future Include a Place for Uber?

Uber may be the “greatest job creator” in the world right now, adding 50,000 drivers a month since the beginning of the year. But consider Tesla Founder & CEO Elon Musk’s vision of a world without drivers. In an interview at an NVIDIA conference this week, Musk said: “”In the distant future, I think people may outlaw driving cars because it’s too dangerous. You can’t have a person driving a two-ton death machine.” He predicts driving will eventually be illegal.

That would be a problem for Uber, which depends on its growing legion of drivers to volunteer their cars for service. In fact, if the drivers weren’t willing to share their cars, in addition to shouldering the cost of buying and maintaining the vehicles, Uber’s model would collapse. The company doesn’t carry a fleet cost, which has made it possible to share 80 percent of revenue with drivers, who appear to be flocking to the opportunity to make some extra cash. Operating as a market maker in exchange for a 20-percent share of revenue is a diabolically good business model.

Should Musk’s vision come to pass — it strikes us as a challenge to his own company’s driver-centric marketing and just a very bad attitude about what a person should do with a two-ton death machine — would Uber vanish?

It’s a compelling thought problem in Local On-Demand Economics, because the answer may not be a simple “No.” Rather, in the autonomous vehicle era it is possible that a car owner could literally send their car to work for them while they stay home, or just ride along to collect the fees and talk with riders. We don’t predict this will come to pass any time in the foreseeable future, but it does suggest that companies that facilitate demand-aggregation may be immune to some forms of obsolescence. Whether individuals volunteered their cars or another firm stepped up to provide the fleet while Uber continued to provide riders, there is a clearly defensible position for demand aggregators in local markets.

Bus rides, by contrast, may not be good LODE targets

Leap Transit launched its high-end bus service in San Francisco this week. A roughly 15-minute ride costs $6 and includes coffee, wi-fi and techie luxuries including an onboard concierge of sorts, according to this entertaining article from The Atlantic’s CityLab.

This very unLODE model requires a steep capital investment in buses that appear to include reclaimed wood walls and Starbucks-like seating. The Leap bus runs a relatively fixed route rather than responding to demand where it is occurs. Moreover, Leap seems to have added human labor costs to the bus-riding equation, since each bus requires a driver and a staffer who helps people find their seats, connect with the wi-fi network and serve or sell coffee and juice on the 15-minute ride.

What do you think? Is bus service susceptible to demand aggregation? We’ll be polling the audience at BIA/Kelsey’s NOW Conference on the topic. Add your thoughts in comments.

FundBox tackles the accounts receivable space

Accounts receivables delays cost small business significant lost opportunity the longer they drag on. If they can get paid faster, the revenue can be redeployed for growth, marketing and other purposes. FundBox, a San Francisco startup announced a $17.5 million round of financing from Khosla Ventures, Ron Conway’s SV Angel and other individual investors, to address this painful business problem.

FundBox’s business is a familiar one, to which the company has added some “big data” analysis. Many traditional lenders finance AR balances and new competitors will certainly emerge. The company analyzes SMB creditworthiness by examining census and business data before deciding to provide financing. This reduces FundBox’s risk and increases the likelihood it will collect most or all of the debts acquired. Example fees on FundBox’s site range from five percent to seven percent, roughly 2.5- to four-times credit card fees — Fundbox fees are inclusive of bank transfer fees to the SMB’s account, but do not offset credit card or other fees the merchant may have paid at the time the AR balance was generated by a transaction.

As noted above, taking a 20 percent carry on demand aggregation is a great business. FundBox’s approach bears a stronger resemblance to the short-term consumer loan industry.

BIA/Kelsey believes accounts receivable financing will ultimately become a thing of the past as the “logistical last-mile” is built out over the next decade. Instead of existing as separate services from the transaction processing system supporting an SMB, AR will be optimized out of demand-side businesses with improved processes. In the short-term, however, FundBox will do big business and have the opportunity to build business relationships that allow its financing engine to be integrated into new local, regional and national services.

Meanwhile, is syndication working magic for BuzzFeed?

At South by SouthWest in Austin, Texas, this week BuzzFeed founder Johan Peretti explained that he has effectively outsourced his site hosting to social networks where his company’s content is shared by users. While BuzzFeed.com attracts approximately 200 million users each month, its syndication network, which includes Facebook and Twitter, generates 18.5 billion impressions a month. However, Peretti said, none of that additional traffic is currently monetized. Instead, it provides new traffic to BuzzFeed, where ad impressions yield his company’s revenue.

“Our goal is to be indifferent to how people find our content and where they find it,” Peretti said in a session called “Lessons from BuzzFeed.”

For those of you counting, the traffic converting to BuzzFeed.com from its syndication reach is approximately 1.08 percent of the total impressions the company’s content generates.

The next step, Peretti said, is to incorporate “native advertising” in the content feeds, taking payment for placement in the syndication stream BuzzFeed produces. Reach is critical to spreading messages, which is critical for marketers to understand, but segmentation and engagement at that scale will be controlled by the social networks.

“Native ads” could be screened by social networks in the future, allowing only editorially vetted articles through to users. BuzzFeed’s business model will be judged in the crucible of its business development efforts, in which it has far less leverage than its syndicators. Better filters and personalization tools for consumers may obsolete the reach-at-all-costs model.

The post Will Tesla's Elon Musk Kill Uber? Thinking Demand-side Economics This Week appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Leading up to the BIA/Kelsey NOW Conference, which will debut in San Francisco this June, we’re kicking off a regular series of blog postings on the Local On-Demand Economy (see our white paper). Twice per week, we’ll wrap notable news, fundings and executive moves in the LODE world.

(Click below for full stories)

Does Elon Musk’s Future Include a Place for Uber?
Uber may be the “greatest job creator” in the world right now, adding 50,000 drivers a month since the beginning of the year. But consider Tesla Founder & CEO Elon Musk’s vision of a world without drivers. In an interview at an NVIDIA conference this week, Musk said: “”In the distant future, I think people may outlaw driving cars because it’s too dangerous. You can’t have a person driving a two-ton death machine.” He predicts driving will eventually be illegal.

Bus rides, by contrast, may not be good LODE targets
Leap Transit launched its high-end bus service in San Francisco this week. A roughly 15-minute ride costs $6 and includes coffee, wi-fi and techie luxuries including an onboard concierge of sorts, according to this entertaining article from The Atlantic’s CityLab. This very unLODE model requires a steep capital investment in buses that appear to include reclaimed wood walls and Starbucks-like seating.

FundBox tackles the accounts receivable space
Accounts receivables delays cost small business significant lost opportunity the longer they drag on. If they can get paid faster, the revenue can be redeployed for growth, marketing and other purposes. FundBox, a San Francisco startup announced a $17.5 million round of financing from Khosla Ventures, Ron Conway’s SV Angel and other individual investors, to address this painful business problem.

Meanwhile, is syndication working magic for BuzzFeed?
At South by SouthWest in Austin, Texas, this week BuzzFeed founder Johan Peretti explained that he has effectively outsourced his site hosting to social networks where his company’s content is shared by users. While BuzzFeed.com attracts approximately 200 million users each month, its syndication network, which includes Facebook and Twitter, generates 18.5 billion impressions a month.

FULL STORIES

Does Elon Musk’s Future Include a Place for Uber?

Uber may be the “greatest job creator” in the world right now, adding 50,000 drivers a month since the beginning of the year. But consider Tesla Founder & CEO Elon Musk’s vision of a world without drivers. In an interview at an NVIDIA conference this week, Musk said: “”In the distant future, I think people may outlaw driving cars because it’s too dangerous. You can’t have a person driving a two-ton death machine.” He predicts driving will eventually be illegal.

That would be a problem for Uber, which depends on its growing legion of drivers to volunteer their cars for service. In fact, if the drivers weren’t willing to share their cars, in addition to shouldering the cost of buying and maintaining the vehicles, Uber’s model would collapse. The company doesn’t carry a fleet cost, which has made it possible to share 80 percent of revenue with drivers, who appear to be flocking to the opportunity to make some extra cash. Operating as a market maker in exchange for a 20-percent share of revenue is a diabolically good business model.

Should Musk’s vision come to pass — it strikes us as a challenge to his own company’s driver-centric marketing and just a very bad attitude about what a person should do with a two-ton death machine — would Uber vanish?

It’s a compelling thought problem in Local On-Demand Economics, because the answer may not be a simple “No.” Rather, in the autonomous vehicle era it is possible that a car owner could literally send their car to work for them while they stay home, or just ride along to collect the fees and talk with riders. We don’t predict this will come to pass any time in the foreseeable future, but it does suggest that companies that facilitate demand-aggregation may be immune to some forms of obsolescence. Whether individuals volunteered their cars or another firm stepped up to provide the fleet while Uber continued to provide riders, there is a clearly defensible position for demand aggregators in local markets.

Bus rides, by contrast, may not be good LODE targets

Leap Transit launched its high-end bus service in San Francisco this week. A roughly 15-minute ride costs $6 and includes coffee, wi-fi and techie luxuries including an onboard concierge of sorts, according to this entertaining article from The Atlantic’s CityLab.

This very unLODE model requires a steep capital investment in buses that appear to include reclaimed wood walls and Starbucks-like seating. The Leap bus runs a relatively fixed route rather than responding to demand where it is occurs. Moreover, Leap seems to have added human labor costs to the bus-riding equation, since each bus requires a driver and a staffer who helps people find their seats, connect with the wi-fi network and serve or sell coffee and juice on the 15-minute ride.

What do you think? Is bus service susceptible to demand aggregation? We’ll be polling the audience at BIA/Kelsey’s NOW Conference on the topic. Add your thoughts in comments.

FundBox tackles the accounts receivable space

Accounts receivables delays cost small business significant lost opportunity the longer they drag on. If they can get paid faster, the revenue can be redeployed for growth, marketing and other purposes. FundBox, a San Francisco startup announced a $17.5 million round of financing from Khosla Ventures, Ron Conway’s SV Angel and other individual investors, to address this painful business problem.

FundBox’s business is a familiar one, to which the company has added some “big data” analysis. Many traditional lenders finance AR balances and new competitors will certainly emerge. The company analyzes SMB creditworthiness by examining census and business data before deciding to provide financing. This reduces FundBox’s risk and increases the likelihood it will collect most or all of the debts acquired. Example fees on FundBox’s site range from five percent to seven percent, roughly 2.5- to four-times credit card fees — Fundbox fees are inclusive of bank transfer fees to the SMB’s account, but do not offset credit card or other fees the merchant may have paid at the time the AR balance was generated by a transaction.

As noted above, taking a 20 percent carry on demand aggregation is a great business. FundBox’s approach bears a stronger resemblance to the short-term consumer loan industry.

BIA/Kelsey believes accounts receivable financing will ultimately become a thing of the past as the “logistical last-mile” is built out over the next decade. Instead of existing as separate services from the transaction processing system supporting an SMB, AR will be optimized out of demand-side businesses with improved processes. In the short-term, however, FundBox will do big business and have the opportunity to build business relationships that allow its financing engine to be integrated into new local, regional and national services.

Meanwhile, is syndication working magic for BuzzFeed?

At South by SouthWest in Austin, Texas, this week BuzzFeed founder Johan Peretti explained that he has effectively outsourced his site hosting to social networks where his company’s content is shared by users. While BuzzFeed.com attracts approximately 200 million users each month, its syndication network, which includes Facebook and Twitter, generates 18.5 billion impressions a month. However, Peretti said, none of that additional traffic is currently monetized. Instead, it provides new traffic to BuzzFeed, where ad impressions yield his company’s revenue.

“Our goal is to be indifferent to how people find our content and where they find it,” Peretti said in a session called “Lessons from BuzzFeed.”

For those of you counting, the traffic converting to BuzzFeed.com from its syndication reach is approximately 1.08 percent of the total impressions the company’s content generates.

The next step, Peretti said, is to incorporate “native advertising” in the content feeds, taking payment for placement in the syndication stream BuzzFeed produces. Reach is critical to spreading messages, which is critical for marketers to understand, but segmentation and engagement at that scale will be controlled by the social networks.

“Native ads” could be screened by social networks in the future, allowing only editorially vetted articles through to users. BuzzFeed’s business model will be judged in the crucible of its business development efforts, in which it has far less leverage than its syndicators. Better filters and personalization tools for consumers may obsolete the reach-at-all-costs model.

The post Will Tesla’s Elon Musk Kill Uber? Thinking Demand-side Economics This Week appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Leading up to the BIA/Kelsey NOW Conference, which will debut in San Francisco this June, we’re kicking off a regular series of blog postings on the Local On-Demand Economy (see our white paper). Twice per week, we’ll wrap notable news, fundings and executive moves in the LODE world.

Top Fundraiser Ever Leaves Uber

Uber Chief Financial Officer Brent Callinicos, who raised more venture capital than any CFO in history for the on-demand car service, has stepped down to spend more time with his wife and daughter. Having delivered $5.6 billion in funding to the company since he joined in September 2013, Callinicos’ record is unmatched among startup financial executives.

He joined the company shortly after its Series C round, when Uber had a mere $306 million in backing. As of yesterday, when CEO Travis Kalanick announced his departure, Uber with Callinicos had raised an additional $4 billion in capital and $1.6 billion in debt financing, a total of $5.6 billion in cash to achieve a $40+ billion valuation. Uber is widely expected to make an initial public offering this year. Callinicos remains an advisor to the company.

If you are not already dialing Callinicos to see what he is doing next, stop and think about the magnitude of Uber’s growth under his financial guidance. Facebook, by contrast, raised only $2.4 billion prior to its IPO, less than half the amount raised by Uber during the last 18 months (Callinicos joined Sept. 9, 2013). Kalinick wrote on his blog at the time that “Uber has enormous opportunities ahead.” Kalinick is reported to have told employees in email that “Brent has done a wonderful job here at Uber.”

“He will be a legend among startup CFOs,” Erik Gordon, professor at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, told The Wall Street Journal. We will watch with interest for Callinicos’ next business move.

Steve Case Talks of “Third-Wave Disruption” at SXSW

AOL founder Steve Case, speaking at the South By Southwest Conference in Austin Texas this weekend, said the Internet is poised for a “third-wave distuption [that will] account for more than half our economy.” This is the Local On-Demand Economy, which will drive the innovations of the past quarter century at the enterprise level into the local and emerging economies.

According to the Chicago Tribune, Case described the third wave as an environment in which [paraphrasing Case] “Companies that expect to thrive will need to partner with embedded stakeholders such as teachers, doctors and large corporations as well as with government agencies.” He responded to critics of the idea saying, “Engagement with governments may sound unappealing to many of you, but the entrepreneurs who figure out how to operate in this new framework have the potential to reap amazing rewards in this next wave.”

Case described the disruption at the local level as the result of improved access to capital from crowdsourcing, an increasing recognition of the role of strategic partnerships in new and existing companies, the rise of “impact” investing for social good and, the emergence of many more centers of digital innovation beyond Silicon Valley. We see the same forces at work. In particular, the role of strategic partnering will be critical. BIA/Kelsey believes partnering will be carried out through digital channels using APIs (application programming interfaces) that allow businesses to blend and customize their products and services with many partners to deliver exactly what a consumer wants, when they want it, at home, the workplace or in the community.

Case’s point about government is well taken. The disruption of local economics will have vast consequences for local, state and federal tax bases. For one thing, more workers will likely be using incorporation to extend their ability to supply and deliver services locally, changing the tax base in novel ways. Every government service, from street maintenance and education to police protection will be impacted by potentially lower short-term government revenue as 1099 economics takes hold. Health care may become an essential enabling service to ensure social mobility as workers abandon the lifelong career. The need for ongoing adult education will become an industry unto itself, augmenting reduced public spending or, perhaps, a greater focus by government on early-life public education.

“The government spends more on health and learning than anybody,” Case told the SXSW audience. “So successful third-wave entrepreneurs will need to engage more, not only with governments as their principal regulator, but also as their potentially largest customer.” We also anticipate that in the “1099 Economy” demand-side aggregators such as Uber, TaskRabbit and others will find that helping their contract employees engage with their community will be a key to independent employee retention.

Case is currently chairman and CEO of Revolution LLC, a Washington-based venture firm with a broad portfolio in consumer-facing startups.

Stay tuned for much more on LODE in the coming weeks.

The post Local On-Demand Economy: Bi-weekly News Briefs appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Booker Software announced today that it has raised $35 Million, which it will use to invest in sales and marketing capabilities and in developing vertical-specific products that “drive more value to merchants,” said CEO Josh McCarter, in a discussion with BIA/Kelsey.

McCarter noted that 9,000 locations are under contract and over 60,000 business users. These are users who are “logging in every day. They are not just signing on once a month” to create a promotion or similar feature. They use Booker’s services as an integral part of their business.

Next steps for the company will further leverage all the trends impacting services-based SMB marketing, including CRM; retention marketing; Point of Sales services; scheduling; and mobile apps via a partnership with Como.

“Last year, we refocused on things that help you grow and operate more efficiently,” said McCarter, noting that the company rebranded from Gramercy One to specifically focus on the SMB space, which now accounts for 80 percent of its revenue. “The data that Booker can aggregate really powers the growth engine,” he said. Services such as email and CRM are only as powerful as the data they can use.

While spas and salons continue to account for a significant portion of the company’s business (dating to its origins as SpaFinder), a number of verticals hold great promise, said McCarter. Pet services, daycare and after-school services (music lessons, art lessons) are doing “very well.” Another area of growth is a JV with The Golf Channel that enables customers to book tee times and other services.

The new round of funding is on top of $40 million previously raised. Several mid-sized funders that specialize in SMB services were included in the round, including Signal Peak (InfusionSoft) and Jump Capital (Swift Pages). The round was led by Medina Capital, a cloud infrastructure specialist.

Other investors included Revolution (Steve Case and Ted Leonsis), Bain Capital, TDF Ventures and Grotech Ventures. In addition, a “strategic investment” was made by First Data, the payment processing giant, who will be announcing details of its relationship with Booker in coming months.

McCarter noted that each investor brings a unique appreciation of Booker’s goals in serving the SMB community, which has been “underserved” by larger VCs, which McCarter called “SMB-averse.” But there is a definite need for SMB services, which focus less on return policies or other ecommerce issues. They are more about everything that a business needs, from scheduling services to POS innovation to equipment rentals. It is a $2.4 trillion space, he argued.

Booker Software CEO Josh McCarter

The post Booker Raises $35 Million: CEO Josh McCarter Talks With BIA/Kelsey appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

On Monday, BuildZoom announced it has raised $2.2 million. With the latest round of infusion, we asked the Co-Founder, Jiyan Wei, where the company is headed next.

“Our goal is to bring transparency to consumers who are shopping for a home improvement contractors. There is a knowledge gap that exists in hiring contractors. We want to bring transparency to pricing and duration of the project — we have the data.”

The Buildzoom platform is designed to help consumers look for home improvement contract work by matching them with the best-fitting professionals for the job. Buildzoom takes a far different approach than just relying on relying on customer reviews and other info. Buildzoom applies a Big Data method and analyzes more than 50 million construction permits, 3 million contractor profiles, and other third party data sources. The company’s Big Data approach is based on assorted information from state licensing boards and Better Business Bureaus; crowd sourcing via social media sites; insurance and bonding status; and self-provided information. A five star rating is just one piece of the puzzle — mitigating the risk of infrequent ratings.

“What distinguishes us from an Angie’s list is our unique focus on the regulated marketplace,” Jiyan Wei said. Buildzoom has created a two-sided marketplace — one for customers to get recommendations on contractors and the other for home improvement service providers to be listed for prospective projects.

The company will use its funds for hiring and growth. BuildZoom was founded in 2012 by Jiyan Wei and David Petersen and is based in San Francisco. The company previously raised a first seed round of $1.4 million.

The post Big Data for Big Renovations: A Conversation with BuildZoom appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

SMBs are increasingly incorporating data analytics into their marketing efforts and not surprisingly, data vendors and service providers are working to entrench themselves with SMB digital marketing channels, as several industry leaders noted at Leading in Local: SMB Digital Marketing in New Orleans Sept. 23.

For SMBs, “it is not about size, it is about sophistication,” noted InfoGroup CDO Matt Graves. “Sophistication is what matters in how SMBs target,” and may translate into such channels as multichannel buys and geo-targeting.

But SMBs are not easy to work with. “SMBs are our hardest customers,” says Graves. “They are not as forgiving as our larger customers. They want us to come up with a plan to help them be successful.”

Speaking on the same session, Radius VP Megan Austin Karlen cautioned that data cannot be treated as one homogenous category — it is a living organism with new inputs all the time. There is data at rest (volume); data in motion (velocity); data in many forms (variety); and data in doubt (veracity). You cannot settle on traditional firmographic segmentation, she noted. Data also needs to be paired with software that enables merchants to access, analyze and integrate data in a simple and effective way.”

Radius itself made news at the conference, announcing a Series C raise of $54.7 Million.

The post At Leading in Local: 'Big Data and SMB Sophistication' appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

SMBs are increasingly incorporating data analytics into their marketing efforts and not surprisingly, data vendors and service providers are working to entrench themselves with SMB digital marketing channels, as several industry leaders noted at Leading in Local: SMB Digital Marketing in New Orleans Sept. 23.

For SMBs, “it is not about size, it is about sophistication,” noted InfoGroup CDO Matt Graves. “Sophistication is what matters in how SMBs target,” and may translate into such channels as multichannel buys and geo-targeting.

But SMBs are not easy to work with. “SMBs are our hardest customers,” says Graves. “They are not as forgiving as our larger customers. They want us to come up with a plan to help them be successful.”

Speaking on the same session, Radius VP Megan Austin Karlen cautioned that data cannot be treated as one homogenous category — it is a living organism with new inputs all the time. There is data at rest (volume); data in motion (velocity); data in many forms (variety); and data in doubt (veracity). You cannot settle on traditional firmographic segmentation, she noted. Data also needs to be paired with software that enables merchants to access, analyze and integrate data in a simple and effective way.”

Radius itself made news at the conference, announcing a Series C raise of $54.7 Million.

The post At Leading in Local: ‘Big Data and SMB Sophistication’ appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.