New York-based LocalResponse announced that it has closed a $5 million funding round from Cava Capital, Vodafone Ventures, Advancit Capital, and Progress Ventures, with participation from previous investors. LocalResponse makes tools that allow companies to detect when people are “checking in” to places where their products are sold—so they can offer them coupons and the like in real time.
LocalResponse started back in 2007 as Buzzd, a site that aggregated check-ins from Foursquare, Gowalla, and other location-based sites. But co-founder and CEO Nihal Mehta had trouble monetizing that business, so he pivoted the model from a consumer-based site to a business-to-business platform. One key feature of LocalResponse’s technology is it can translate natural language into check-ins. So if a person tweets that they’re on the way to a certain restaurant, say, that restaurant can use LocalResponse’s technology to pinpoint that customer and offer him or her a deal.
LocalResponse has signed on Coca-Cola, Walgreens, Verizon, USA Networks, Aveda, and McDonalds as early customers. The company says ads placed through its platform have a click-through rate of about 40 percent.
Among the existing investors that participated in this round were Metamorphic Ventures, Extreme Venture Partners, FF Ventures, Acadia Woods Partners and Jim Pallotta. Last December, LocalResponse raised $1.5 million from Verizon Ventures, Penny Black/BOLDstart Ventures, Charles River Ventures, and Greycroft Partners.
