Sparkcentral Raises $12M Series B Funding Led by Split Rock Partners

Market Leader for Social Media Customer Support Enables Enterprises to Deliver Optimal Customer Service

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.—January 20, 2015—Sparkcentral, the enterprise customer engagement platform for real-time customer service, today announced it has raised $12M in a Series B funding round. The round was led by Split Rock Partners with participation from existing investor Sigma West. Split Rock will also gain a board seat as part of the funding deal.

Today’s customers expect instant service and recognition from enterprises, on the device and channel of their choice. By providing an efficient workflow for resolving even the most complex customer issues, Sparkcentral enables enterprise support teams to build a trusted relationship with every single customer.

Since raising its Series A in 2013, the company emerged as a market leader for social media customer support software, winning customers including T-Mobile,Delta Air Lines, Netflix, Dropbox, Uber and Sears. Last quarter alone, Sparkcentral grew by 60% and it plans to use the funding to expand and hire across all departments, particularly engineering, sales and marketing.

“Our vision is to shape the future of the customer experience, and this funding is a strong vote of confidence by enterprise software investors whose values strongly align with our own,” said Sparkcentral Co-founder and CEO Davy Kestens. “The customer support industry urgently needs better solutions, and the faster we work to perfect our customer engagement platform, the more enterprises will be able to provide trusted, consistent and delightful customer experiences.”

Split Rock Partners, Sparkcentral’s newest investor, has a strong track record with enterprise software companies, including Intacct, BlueKai, Demandbase and InsideView.

“Today’s customers are in control and enterprises are struggling to keep up. Legacy players are not architected to serve customers in the new era, and Sparkcentral is filling the gap by building solutions that enable enterprises to deliver customer experiences on the customers’ terms.” said Jim Simons, managing director at Split Rock Partners, who will be joining the Sparkcentral board of directors.

Sparkcentral fits squarely into what Gartner refers to as the Customer Engagement Center (CEC), which extends into CRM to reflect the new multichannel and increasingly digital forms of engagement: “The goal of the CEC is not only to provide reactive service to customers as they move among communications channels — including social media — while retaining the customers’ context, but also to deliver the appropriate business rule to determine the next best action, information or process with which to engage the customers.”

About Sparkcentral
In an era of empowered, hyperconnected customers, Sparkcentral is the only CRM platform for enterprises that unifies social, mobile, cloud and contextual data to proactively deliver personalized and engaging customer experiences. Customer service teams use our software to efficiently handle large amounts of customer inquiries in a fast and structured manner. Sparkcentral’s client roster includes Delta Air Lines, Netflix, Dropbox, Uber, Sears and T-Mobile. For more information, visit www.sparkcentral.com.

About Split Rock Partners
Split Rock Partners, with offices in Minneapolis and Menlo Park, invests in leading software and Internet services companies. Since 2005, Split Rock has raised $575 million over two funds. Split Rock supports exceptional teams across all stages of company development with flexible capital spanning both primary and secondary investments. Representative companies backed by Split Rock’s team include Acquia, Black Duck Software, BlueKai, Code42, Compete, Demandbase, eBureau, HireRight, InsideView, Intacct, Janrain, LowerMyBills, MyNewPlace, QuinStreet (Nasdaq: QNST), Snagajob, SPS Commerce (Nasdaq: SPSC) and Vormetric. Additional information about the firm can be found at www.splitrock.com.