Dallas’ HipLogiq announced Monday it has raised $7 million in a Series B round to expand its sales and marketing staff.
Hadron Global Partners, a division of Connecticut private equity firm Carriage House Partners and RLB Holdings, led the round.
The social media marketing startup says its products use the popular social media service Twitter to recreate one-to-one marketing on a mass scale. HipLogiq sells Web-based software—called “SocialCompass” and “SocialCentiv”—for small- and medium-sized business to reach consumers online, specifically through social media portals, and to reward existing customers with perks through loyalty programs.
It works like this. The software searches Twitter and looks for relevant tweets based on a business’ keywords and location. Relevant tweets are flagged and a business can respond to a potential customer with discounts or offers of a free product. Such “location-based conversations” help the software to be more precise in picking out the most relevant tweets, the company says.
Since its founding in 2008, HipLogiq has signed on a variety large consumer companies as clients, including Papa John’s, Dunkin’ Donuts, and 7-Eleven. “It’s exhilarating to watch our hard work move forward and pick up steam,” says Bernard Perrine, HipLogiq’s CEO and co-founder and a former founding partner of Kinko’s, which was sold to FedEx (NYSE: FDX) in 2003.
Last May, the startup raised $5 million in its Series A round, with Hadron investing a majority of the funds.
With the new investment, HipLogiq plans to double its employees to 40 and expand beyond its Dallas headquarters. It is focusing on California, Atlanta, and New York.
