More investment activity from Seaya Ventures, after it participated in OpenTable competitor Restalo’s recent $10 million Series B round. This time the Spanish VC is leading a $6.5 million Series B round for Plenummedia, which claims to be the leader in the Spanish “Do-It-For-Me” SME market.
The Madrid-headquartered company provides a full suite of technology tools and services to help small and medium sized companies do business on the Internet, ranging from desktop and mobile websites, email, SEO, Social Media to SEM.
Plenummedia says it plans to use the additional funding, adding to the $4 million it had already raised from private investors, to accelerate growth in Mexico and expand into other LatAm countries. It will also use the new capital to power what it’s calling a “Buy & Build” strategy that should see it add to the four acquisitions it’s already made over the last 18 months to enable it to bolster its proposition to SMEs.
We should also be note that Seaya Partner Michael Kleindl is President and co-founder of Plenummedia, as well as being a previous backer, so the choice of investor isn’t all that surprising.
Calling Plenummedia a one-stop-shop, CEO and co-founder Juan Muñoz Blanco says the startup’s strategy is based on two main assumption. “First, small and medium sized business owners in Spain and LatAm do require service, so we totally believe in the ‘Do-It-For-Me market’,” he says. “Secondly, SME customers do want a fully integrated solution, they do not want the hassle of dealing with different providers for web, mobile, email, SEO, SEM, Social Media etc. Thats why we are building a fully 360 Degree Service and Technology offering tailormade for the SME market.”
Founded in 2009, Plenummedia claims to have broken even in Q1 of 2013, despite having 180 employees in Spain and Mexico. It has 10,000 customers in the two countries it operates in, pointing out that many of these produce reoccurring revenue based on the company’s service model.
Echoing the sentiments of new investor Seaya Ventures, the Plenummedia CEO is also talking up the opportunities offered by the LatAm market, noting that it’s “hugely under-penetrated” and immature in “all areas of digital”, not least in the SME segment, while the main economies are growing at a decent rate and are politically stable. “In our business, contract loyalty, low bad debt rates and relatively low cost of operation favours our model,” he adds.
But, perhaps best of all, there’s “almost no competition”, with Plenummedia’s largest competitors, Reach Local and Yodle, yet to enter the region.
via TechCrunch » Startups http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/startups/~3/ndM9WA028C0/
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