Influitive puts the sexy back in B2B marketing with over $11M this year

Hot on the heels of its $3.75 million seed round in August, Influitive is continuing to climb. Today, the company announced that it closed a $7.3 million Series A, bringing its total for the year to over $11 million.

Influitive’s software helps businesses mobilize their customers into advocates and use these advocates strategically as part of marketing campaigns. The products are geared towards business-to-business companies, rather than those selling consumer-facing products.

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Basically, Influitive helps boring, unsexy companies activate an “army” of advocates to boost their sales effort. Using AdvocateHub, marketers invite customers to join a community and incentivize them with perks and privileges. It is one thing for an athletic gear company to motivate their brand enthusiasts with free sneakers. It is quite another to find passionate fans of email marketing software or telecommunications systems, and yet referrals, references, and social media are valuable assets when selling a product or service.

A statement issued by the company states that trust in corporate sales and marketing continues to drop, and B2B buyers are increasing their reliance on social media and “blind” peer endorsements to make purchasing decisions. Influitive offers a more productive alternative by gamifying the process.

Since it raised the seed round, Influitive has increased its sales by 145%. The new funding will help the company build its marketing, sales, and service teams and further development of AdvocateHub. Hummer Winblad and Relay Ventures led this round, with participation from existing investors Lightspeed Venture Partners, New Enterprise Associates, Illuminate Ventures, and other angels and firms.

Influitive is based in Toronto and San Francisco. Read the press release.