SheerID raises $64 million to accelerate growth in identity marketing
Substantial minority investment from CVC Growth Partners allows SheerID to expand platform across multiple geographies; builds on growth momentum
SheerID, the industry leader in the burgeoning identity marketing space, today announced the close of a $64 million equity round led by CVC Growth Partners (“CVC Growth”). CVC Growth will join SheerID’s board alongside Centana Growth Partners and Voyager Capital, which led SheerID’s earlier financing rounds in 2017 and 2015, respectively.
The new funding comes on the heels of 450% revenue growth over the last three years, achieving the rank of 243 in this year’s Deloitte and Touche Fast 500. Over the last year, SheerID has expanded its customer base to include more than 200 customers across a diverse range of Fortune 2000 B2C brands such as Target, Amazon, Lowe’s, Comcast, Google, T-Mobile and Urban Outfitters. Brands use the SheerID Identity Marketing Platform to identify and acquire consumer tribes like students, teachers, or the military with personalised offers backed by instant verification via 9,000 authoritative data sources.
“Our exponential growth is driven by major shifts in personalisation, privacy, and performance marketing. Marketers are struggling to capture the attention of consumers who want more control over their personal data and less uninvited marketing from brands,” said Jake Weatherly, CEO of SheerID. “Our platform allows brands to create offers that honour and recognise an entire consumer tribe, increasing trust and word-of-mouth, and decreasing customer acquisition costs.”
The Rise of Identity Marketing
In a recent report from WBR Insights, 80% of marketers felt more pressure to meet customer acquisition and revenue goals than they did the year prior, citing brand differentiation as well as the current privacy climate as their top two concerns. This is why B2C marketers across a number of industries are turning to identity marketing, a new form of personalisation focused on winning over consumer tribes that align with the brand’s promise.
“Gen Z is the future of streaming media. We knew our growth potential with this audience was vast and our personalised offer to students has taken off,” said Cheri Davies, Senior Director of Acquisition Marketing for Comcast. “Partnering with SheerID has given us a powerful new way to capture and retain our ideal customer segment.”
These consumer tribes share important aspects of their identity, such as their life stage, occupation, and affiliations. They are socially connected and readily share information with each other, like special product offers and brand experiences, that are exclusively provided by brands to their group. This has the double-benefit of increasing marketing reach while decreasing customer acquisition costs, often producing ROAS (return on ad spend) results of 25:1 or higher.
“The most effective marketing does more than convert an audience, it provides a service they value,” said Lauryn Nwankpa, Head of Social Impact for Headspace. “With SheerID, we can create unique offers for students and teachers that support them and move them to spread the word, which benefits the entire educational community and our business. Our identity marketing campaigns generate a powerful ripple effect that’s hard to match.”
Use of New Funds
In addition to bringing on new customers, SheerID has expanded to include 120 employees, and will continue to grow in various areas of the business including marketing, sales, and engineering. This will allow SheerID to expand its platform so companies in all geographies can engage an even broader range of consumer tribes related to occupation, interests, causes, and affiliations worldwide.
“We are incredibly excited to partner with the SheerID team in their next phase of growth,” said Jason Glass, Senior Managing Director at CVC Growth Partners. “As part of our long-standing efforts in fraud prevention and commerce enablement software, we identified SheerID as the industry leader in identity marketing and identity attribute verification.” Doug Behrman, Director at CVC Growth Partners, added, “SheerID’s track record and growth has been very impressive, and the company stands to benefit from powerful secular trends across privacy regulation, personalisation, and eCommerce. We are proud to partner with a team that provides meaningful value not only to their customers, but to groups like students, first responders, and military veterans.” Jason Glass and Doug Behrman will join SheerID’s board of directors.
