The Series B funding will help the company to accelerate platform development and reinforce VendAsta’s position as the industry leader of Reputation Management solutions.
Saskatoon Saskatchewan – March 18 2013 – VendAsta Technologies the industry leading provider of white label digital brand management solutions is raising $8.25 million in funding from Vanedge Capital and BDC Venture Capital. The new round of funding will help VendAsta accelerate platform development to meet partner demand for new features and tools and provide additional support.
“For any business digital fragmentation creates acute challenges in managing local brand reputation. The various channels that businesses must monitor and engage are seemingly endless. VendAsta’s platform closes the loop for businesses supplying them with tools to succeed in the digital world ” says Jed Williams Senior Analyst at BIA/Kelsey.
VendAsta launched its Reputation Management platform in 2011 and within two years the company has grown to become one of the largest Reputation Management providers in the world. Together its channel partners include eight of the top ten newspaper companies in the United States as well as large pure play digital agencies Internet Yellow Pages and other independent digital and SEO agencies that provide Reputation Management to over 100 000 local small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs).
“VendAsta Technologies has done an excellent job partnering with top tier media companies across North America ” said V. Paul Lee Managing Partner at Vanedge Capital. “Customer calls revealed VendAsta is agile responsive and delivers what they have promised. We have been told multiple times that VendAsta is a top vendor.” Robert Simon Senior Managing Partner of the BDC Venture Capital IT Fund added that “the SMB market has been to a large degree untapped. We see VendAsta growing to be a very significant company. This investment is strongly aligned with our efforts to ensure a healthy and vibrant early stage ecosystem in Canada and to help build the globally competitive Canadian companies we are so passionate about.”
“We have built a white label reputation platform that allows businesses to monitor manage and build their brand ” said Brendan King CEO of VendAsta. “With these tools our partners — whether large newspapers and yellow page companies or small traditional and digital agencies — can be up and running in days and on the street selling products backed by a full suite of prescriptive sales and marketing materials. This funding will allow us to accelerate the development of new products and maintain our culture of continual improvement.”
VendAsta’s platform currently includes Reputation Monitoring Brand Analytics Social Marketing Presence Builder and Concierge tools to help local businesses build their online brands. As an example an agency that manages digital marketing for a local restaurant can keep track of the reviews the restaurant gets on relevant websites generate tasks to respond to these reviews on the client’s behalf ensure all the listings about the restaurant are accurate and identify new leads by monitoring relevant chatter on social media — all from one common white label Business Centre. For its larger partners VendAsta offers a suite of API-based services that can integrate this data directly into their platforms.
Interested parties can request demos of VendAsta’s solutions by going to www.VendAsta.com.
About VendAsta
VendAsta Technologies is a leader in digital marketing and brand management solutions for small to mid-sized local businesses. VendAsta provides white label solutions to media companies that work directly with local businesses including online directional media companies newspapers broadcasters SEO services certified marketing representatives web hosting providers and interactive agencies. VendAsta’s reputation and presence management platform includes Reputation Monitoring Brand Analytics Presence Builder Social Marketing lead generation tools and Concierge CRM platforms to help manage and sell digital products. Today over 10 000 digital sales representatives across 250 media organizations provide VendAsta powered solutions to local businesses. For more information visit www.vendasta.com.
About Vanedge Capital
Vanedge Capital is a Vancouver BC based venture capital fund focused on investments in interactive entertainment digital media and infrastructure software businesses. The fund managers have extensive experience and relationships in this sector and have built and led world class companies in video games cloud storage and enterprise software among others. For more information visit www.vanedgecapital.com or contact info@vanedgecapital.com.
About BDC Venture Capital
BDC Venture Capital helps transform great ideas into great companies. With more than $1 billion in current and planned investments and 25 years of experience in venture capital BDC Venture Capital focuses on innovative IT health and energy/clean technology companies as well as venture funds with high growth potential. BDC Venture Capital works with entrepreneurs and venture capital investors in the private sector to build outstanding Canadian companies. BDC Venture Capital is involved at every stage of the development cycle from seed through expansion to exit and its goal is to deliver excellent return on investment while working to create a sound financial ecosystem for Canadian technology ventures. Find out more at www.bdc.ca/vc or on Twitter @BDC_VC.
Press Contacts
VendAsta Technologies
Jeff Tomlin Vice President Marketing
(306) 220-2721 | jtomlin@vendasta.com
Vanedge Capital
Amy Rae Principal
(604) 351-7110 | www.vanedgecapital.com
BDC Venture Capital
Shawn Salewski Manager of Public Relations
(514) 283-1759 | shawn.salewski@bdc.ca
