ReachLocal, a provider of local online marketing solutions for SMBs, has raised $55.2 million in new financing. This comes on top of the $12.7 million it has raised since its founding in 2004. The new funds give ReachLocal an estimated valuation of $305 million, since it was previously valued at $250 million.
The money is coming from Rho Ventures, which recently made a bundle from the sale of Tacoda to AOL. It will be used to continue the company’s rapid expansion both in the U.S. and overseas, and for technology.
In the past 12 months alone, ReachLocal has opened 11 sales offices in the top 10 DMAs. It expects to open a top-down DMA roll out in one market per month throughout 2008 and 2009. The company now claims to have “several hundred ad sales reps.” It sells for most of the local portal and sales engine leaders, including Yahoo!, Google, MSN, AOL and Superpages.com.
The company is lead by Zorik Gordon (who is speaking on the SES part of ILM) and headquartered in Woodland Hills, CA. Its funding and valuation is likely to have a major beneficial effect not only on itself, but on competitors that also combine sales software, sales people and sales channels, such as RHD’s LocalLaunch, Idearc’s Inceptor, WebVisible, Weblistic and Innovectra’s LeadStream — although the Yellow Pages is the immediate target.
“For me, this is a happy day,” says Weblistic President Dick Larkin. “It validates the importance of local online marketing.”
Are you sure? That is nowhere else on the web or major trade pubs… I am looking for confirmation.
If so, that is wild because those guys are growing quickly and that is a stack of cash. Again, looking to confirm somewhere b/c this is quite a claim…
This Person has a fictional email address, and previously wrote in using a different name. Peter K
@Corey – here is link to announcement on ReachLocal site:
http://www.reachlocal.com/register/press_2007-10-02.php
Great news for team at RLocal…congrats. Peter, has it been disclosed which markets presently have RL premise reps? Any Intl markets? Thanks, Jeff@CornerstoneLocal.com
Don’t forget OrangeSoda ;-)
Hopefully in the next two months, I will have a company that is worthy of fitting in here – focusing on the construction and contracting vertical.
The local search marketing scene is very underserved, and whoever can come in with powerful a-la-carte offerings that small business owners can afford will break bank.
It’s going to be interesting to look back at these investments and see where and when they actually occur now.
It’s going to be a lot tougher to sell a company.
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[...] size of its online sales force. “Local search marketing company ReachLocal will use its massive $55.2 million infusion to build a gigantic sales force that it hopes will dislodge the Yellow Pages as the de-facto place [...]
[...] we had ReachLocal’s $305 million valuation based on a $55 million round of financing, sparking the whole marketplace. In early March, [...]