Visible Technologies Tracks Down $22M for Global Expansion

Things are really heating up for Visible Technologies. The Bellevue, WA-based maker of software to help companies monitor social media and manage their online reputations announced today it has raised a Series C funding round worth $22 million. The round was led by a new investor—Investor Growth Capital (IGC), the growth-stage venture arm of Investor AB. Existing investors Ignition Partners, Centurion Holdings, In-Q-Tel, and WPP also participated.

“This funding allows us to accelerate our growth path to continue meeting the demands of global customers and help them drive real business results through successful online consumer engagement,” said Visible CEO Dan Vetras in a statement. “We chose IGC as our partners to lead the round for their market expertise, track record in creating sector-leading companies and ability to help us expand in markets outside North America, especially in Europe.”

Visible Technologies was founded back in 2003, and its cutting-edge technology finds positive and negative content about a brand online, for example, and uses keyword placement, optimization, and linking techniques to make the positive entries pop up higher in search-engine results. In the past year, the company has raised smaller amounts of equity and debt financing—it had raised a total of $23.5 million as of October 2009. Its customers include Microsoft, Autodesk, and Xerox.

Author: Gregory T. Huang

Greg is a veteran journalist who has covered a wide range of science, technology, and business. As former editor in chief, he overaw daily news, features, and events across Xconomy's national network. Before joining Xconomy, he was a features editor at New Scientist magazine, where he edited and wrote articles on physics, technology, and neuroscience. Previously he was senior writer at Technology Review, where he reported on emerging technologies, R&D, and advances in computing, robotics, and applied physics. His writing has also appeared in Wired, Nature, and The Atlantic Monthly’s website. He was named a New York Times professional fellow in 2003. Greg is the co-author of Guanxi (Simon & Schuster, 2006), about Microsoft in China and the global competition for talent and technology. Before becoming a journalist, he did research at MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Lab. He has published 20 papers in scientific journals and conferences and spoken on innovation at Adobe, Amazon, eBay, Google, HP, Microsoft, Yahoo, and other organizations. He has a Master’s and Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT, and a B.S. in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.