Zefr gets $30M to unlock the power of YouTube for brands

With more than a billion unique visitors each month, YouTube is an attractive venue for brands to reach consumers — but its default tools aren’t always sufficient for enterprise companies.

That’s why Zefr has seen such success building a set of social marketing and rights management services on top of the video-streaming platform. The company, which today announced $30 million in new venture funding, makes cloud-based software brands can use to track not only their content but relevant content uploaded by fans.

In addition to analytics — it offers plenty of stats on sentiment and engagement — Zefr also enables brands to identify and claim “infringing” content, turning it into a source of revenue by serving ads over the videos. (Piracy can be a win-win situation after all.)

Above: Some of Zefr’s customers.

Zefr has racked up some major customers, including “nearly every major studio or label,” according to the company. The company said it has doubled its revenue every year for the last three years. It recently opened a New York City office as it’s expanded its engineering team.

Institutional Venture Partners (IVP) led Zefr’s $30 million funding round, which also included existing investors U.S. Venture Partners, Shasta Ventures, First Round Capital, and Richmond Park Partners.

“Our software solution fills a huge need in the market, we have an incredible team and we have momentum,” said Zefr cofounder Zach James in a statement. “With the new capital, we are going to add fuel to the fire.”