Accel Partners Acquires Minority Stake in Dealer.com

Burlington, VT, Aug. 25, 2011 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Dealer.com (www.dealer.com), the global leader in automotive internet marketing solutions, today announced that Accel Partners, the global venture capital and growth equity firm and early investor in Facebook, Groupon and Rovio/Angry Birds among others, has made a minority investment in the company. Todd MacLean, Partner at Accel, will join the company’s Board of Directors, replacing the seat previously held by Don Hall.

“We are excited by the opportunity to partner with one of the world’s most successful technology investors,” said Mark Bonfigli, CEO of Dealer.com. ”We view the backing of Accel Partners as a vote of confidence in Dealer.com’s mission to become the preeminent digital marketing partner for the automotive industry and look forward to their guidance and counsel as we continue growing and developing valuable solutions for our customers.”

“We are thrilled to partner with Mark, Rick and the rest of the team at Dealer.com and look forward to helping them continue to grow an exceptional company,” commented Todd MacLean, Partner at Accel Partners. ”Over the past year and a half, we’ve come to know and admire the company and its core values. While we are clearly impressed by their industry-leading technology platform, it is the ability and passion of the team and the incredible culture they’ve built over time that truly differentiates Dealer.com in our eyes. 

“At Accel, we believe that with continued expansion of new distribution channels and increasingly decentralized decision-making, the key to a software company’s success today has very much reverted to basics – building truly great products that customers love to use. In this regard, Dealer.com’s long list of “raving fans” and industry awards is great testimony to its historic success.   Perhaps more importantly, we believe the Company’s emphasis on building a deep-rooted culture – which allows it to attract, retain and motivate great people – will drive continued, repeatable success in the future.”

In the last several years, Dealer.com has seen rapid acceleration in sales, customers and product introductions. Revenues reached $85 million in 2010, an increase of over 60 percent from 2009 and more than triple the 2008 level, and the company increased RD spending more than 100 percent while adding key retail and OEM client relationships to its portfolio.

Bonfigli concluded: “As the online and social media landscapes continue to evolve at an increasingly rapid pace, our partnership with Accel will strengthen our ability to transform the experience in the automotive industry.”

About Accel Partners

Founded in 1983, and managing nearly $9 billion in capital, Accel Partners has a long history of partnering with outstanding entrepreneurs and management teams to build world-class businesses.  Accel today invests globally using dedicated teams and market-specific strategies for local geographies, with offices in Palo Alto, California, New York City, London, New Delhi and Bangalore, as well as in China via its partnership with IDG-Accel.

Accel has helped entrepreneurs build over 300 successful technology companies, many of which have defined their categories, including AdMob, Alfresco, Atlassian, BBN, Brightcove, ComScore, Etsy, Facebook, Gameforge, GlamMedia, Groupon, Imperva, Infinera, Interwoven, IronPlanet, JBoss, Kayak, Macromedia, metroPCS, OPOWER, Polycom/PictureTel, Playfish, Portal Software, QlikTech, Quidsi (Diapers.com), Rapt, Real Networks, Responsys, Riverbed, SupportSoft, UUNet, Veritas, Walmart.com, Webroot, Wily Technology, Wonga, XenSource and Zimbra. For more information, please visit the Accel Partners web site at www.accel.com, or find us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/accel

About Dealer.com (www.dealer.com)

Dealer.com is the global leader in online marketing solutions for the automotive industry, providing award-winning SaaS-based e-marketing solutions to OEMs, auto dealers and media companies. Headquartered in Burlington, Vermont with a satellite office in Manhattan Beach, California, the company’s innovative websites and integrated online tools include advertising alternatives that significantly lower the cost of customer acquisition, enhancing dealers’ efficiency and profitability.

Recent national and international accolades include placing No. 14 on Outside magazine’s 2011 list of Best Places to Work in America and receiving two Stevie Awards from the American Business Association for Best Overall Company of the Year and Fastest Growing Company of the year in 2011. Dealer.com has also by honored by Inc. magazine as one of the 2010 Top Small Company Workplaces in addition to securing a place on both the Inc. 5000 and Deloitte Technology Fast 500 rankings in 2010. Dealer.com wasalso ranked first in SEO effectiveness among auto dealer website providers for the third consecutive year in 2011 by Sorgenfrei LLC.

CONTACT: Daniel Sieger
         RF|Binder Partners
         (212) 994-7536
         dan.sieger@rfbinder.com

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Buddy Media Attracts World’s Top Brands With Facebook-Management Platform

social media, Software, funding

Arlene Weintraub 8/25/11

In February, the Facebook page for the popular snack brand Pretzel Crisps had drawn only 6,800 fans. So Jason Harty, director of field and interactive marketing for the brand, launched a campaign on Facebook offering a dollar-off coupon to anyone who became a fan. In two weeks, the fan base grew to 13,700 for Pretzel Crisps, which is made by Skillman, NJ-based Snack Factory. A few weeks later, in the middle of the night, Harty decided to sweeten the offer. With a few clicks, he revised the coupon to buy one bag, get one free—a $4 value. In 36 hours, Pretzel Crisps had 29,000 Facebook fans.

The software platform that allowed Harty to act on his midnight marketing whim is made by Buddy Media, a fast-growing, New York City company that was founded in 2007. The company has since amassed an impressive client list, which not only includes Snack Factory, but also Mattel, Aflac, Sony, Johnson Johnson, Discovery, and many more. On August 15, Buddy Media raised $54 million in a Series D funding round, bringing its total venture haul to $90 million.

Some members of the financial press estimated that the Series D round valued Buddy Media at a half-billion dollars. In an interview a week later at Buddy Media’s headquarters, the company’s co-founder and CEO Michael Lazerow declined to confirm the valuation estimate, except to say, “We didn’t say it was wrong.” Instead, he chose to focus on how the company will use the cash going forward. “We have to go global,” says Lazerow, a former journalist who founded the company with his wife, Kass, the company’s chief operating officer. “Only 25 percent of people on Facebook and Twitter are in the U.S. So we have brands telling us, ‘We need help.’ It’s a huge opportunity.”

The platform that Buddy Media is taking global is, in its simplest terms, a social-media content-management system. While it’s true that marketers can use Facebook’s own tools to publish basic fan pages and the like, Lazerow believed companies would need …Next Page »

Arlene Weintraub is the editor of Xconomy New York. She can be reached at aweintraub@xconomy.com and followed on Twitter @awjourn.

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