Marketo, a SaaS startup focusing on revenue performance management, has raised a $ 50 million round with Battery Ventures leading the way. Although it’s not a household name, Marketo has been on a roll, totaling $ 107 million in VC investment since it launched in 2006, and now earning upward of $ 40 million a year in revenue.
Cloaked under the nebulous “revenue performance management” robe, what Marketo actually does, as explained to me by Co-Founder and CEO Phil Fernandez in August, is help customers nurture their sales leads, target marketing efforts and analyze revenue streams. About half of Marketo’s draw is in operational products (e.g., tools for automating email and marketing events, or for identifying leads), he said, and the other half is analytics. On the analytics front, Marketo helps customers figure out score prospective leads and also track the success of marketing campaigns.
One of the secrets to Marketo’s success is partnering with cloud-based companies across the SaaS ecosystem so that customers have a seamless experience in using its services. Salesforce.com is a natural fit, and Fernandez said about 80 percent of Marketo customers integrate with the CRM leader. Elsewhere, Marketo has partnerships with Google for analytics and apps, WebEx for meetings, ExactTarget for email automation, Radian6 for social-media monitoring and a variety of other providers that help customers deliver on what Marketo tells them.
Existing investors Institutional Venture Partners, InterWest Partners, Mayfield Fund and Storm Ventures all participated in this round, as well.
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