New York’s Sailthru plans to expand with its freshly minted $8 million Series A funding and nearly double its staff within 12 months, according to its CEO and founder Neil Capel.
The startup announced last week it completed the financing round, which was led by RRE Ventures with participation from AOL Ventures, DFJ Gotham Ventures, Lerer Ventures, Hatteras Funds, Thrive Capital, and Pilot Group. This latest funding, combined with a seed round in 2010, brings three-year-old Sailthru’s total financing to $9 million and positions the company for growth, Capel says.
Sailthru sends e-mails on behalf of clients such as The Huffington Post, Fab.com, Thrillist, and The New York Observer. Capel explains that his company curates flash deals, stories in newsletters, and other content that will be of interest to individual recipients. “We pick each piece of content for each user,” he says. “If there was a list of half a million, then half a million different e-mails would go out.”
On a macro level, Sailthru can be seen as a rival to e-mail service providers that handle distribution of bulk marketing, advertising, and other content for corporate clients. However, Sailthru says it offers individualized e-mails that it claims other providers do not.
Capel, a British transplant who confesses his accent skews more toward Australian these days, says his company wants to change the way
