Return Path secures US$35m in latest capital raising round

Email data analytics company, Return Path, has secured a US$35 million capital injection in a new founding round.

The capital raising was led by private equity firm, Vista Equity Partners, and will be used to help expand Return Path’s sales and marketing capabilities, as well as accelerate its product roadmap, the companies said.

Return Path provides analytics insight on email data to help marketers understand customer behaviour as well as ensure messages reach desired customer inboxes. It claims to have posted 40 consecutive quarters of revenue growth and work with 2500 leading brands globally.

In a statement, the company said it will continue to invest in developing solutions based on its analysis capabilities around transactional trends, with plans to bring new solutions to market next year.

According to the vendor’s recent annual Inbox Benchmark Placement Report, Australia is showing an inbox placement for marketing emails of 89 per cent, one of the highest percentages globally and on par with Germany.

More recently, Return Path has also developed an Email Fraud protection solution aimed at security chiefs, which provides real-time threat intelligence against phishing and network perimeter attacks.

As part of the deal, Vista Equity Partners principal, Patrick Severson, joins Return Path’s board of directors.

According to CrunchBase, Return Path had raised US$62.3 million in six rounds to date, from seven investors. Other investors include Sapphire Ventures (formerly SAP Ventures), Union Square Ventures, Foundry Group and Costanoa Venture Capital. The latest capital injection is its largest sum so far.

The news comes just a week after Return Path acquired rival analytics company, Motley Bunch, for an undisclosed sum. Motley Bunch was founded in 2012 and provides behavioural and trend insights on anonymised online shopper data. According to the company, it has analysed more than US$13 billion in ecommerce transactions to date.

“This investment enables us to accelerate our roadmap and ramp up our sales power to take advantage of our leadership in email data-driven solutions across all our lines of business,” said return path CEO, Matt Blumberg.

“Return Path has a history of creating new opportunity through innovation, and we’re grateful to find in Vista Equity Partners a team with the vision and experience to help us capitalise on it, given the company’s impressive track record of investing in B2B software and data companies.

“This partnership will foster new opportunities for growth and success for years to come.”

Severson said Return Path was a unique company with a strong product portfolio that aligned well with Vista’s focus.

“Return Path is a premium business with a strong management team, unrivalled network of email data, clear ROI for enterprise marketing and security departments, and a large and rapidly growing market opportunity,” he said.

Vista’s portfolio of companies also includes Autotask, Accruent, Active Network and Websense.

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