Yotpo Ltd., which offers e-commerce sites a platform for adding a social layer to product reviews, has raised $10.7 million in a Series A funding led by Blumberg Capital. Prior investors, including Rhodium Ventures, 2B Angels, Gandyr Group, and private investors Oliver Jung, also participated in the round. The company has raised $13 million altogether, including the new round.
Yotpo will use the financing to hire staff for its Tel Aviv headquarters and US office in San Francisco, and to accelerate product development, sales and marketing. Blumberg Capital Israeli venture partner Alon Lifshitz will join Yotpo's board and former GoDaddy CEO Warren Adelman will join its advisory board.
Yotpo CEO Tomer Tagrin and CTO Omri Cohen founded the company in January 2011 and launched its product two months later. The product is a plug-in for e-commerce sites, to help the boost sales by powering reviews from verified customers and people who agree to connect their social media profiles to its system, making it possible to share reviews across sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Foursquare.
Yotpo's reasoning is that online shoppers prefer to rely on reviews by friends and acquaintances on social networks, rather than on anonymous reviews, thereby increasing the likelihood that shoppers will buy the product.
Cohen told "Globes", "What began as a reviews platform turned into a powerful marketing tools for companies. Reviews represent important content for the target audience. Feedback from most of our users says that the content created by our platform is a great source of new marketing opportunities. Blumberg understands what we're doing, and we're excited by the firm's financial backing. With the new funding, we'll be able to speed up product development, sales, and marketing."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on January 8, 2014
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