Zeta Interactive, the data-driven marketing technology pioneer whose SaaS-based marketing cloud helps brands acquire, retain and grow customer relationships, announced today that it has secured $45 million in new funding from business development companies managed by FS Investments and sub-advised by GSO Capital Partners LP, Cerberus PNC Senior Loan Fund, L.P. and PNC Bank, National Association.
This capital is in conjunction with the closing of Zeta's recently announced acquisition of Acxiom Corp's award-winning email services unit, Acxiom Impact, which radically expanded the company's existing Fortune 500 customer base and dramatically grew its percentage of long-term subscription revenue. Zeta was represented by Sanjay Chadda of the investment bank Petsky Prunier.
"Deepening our relationship with FS Investments, Blackstone and GSO, as well as adding affiliates of Cerberus and PNC to our financing sources strengthens our balance sheet as we continue to invest in our company's growth," said David A. Steinberg, Zeta Interactive's CEO and Co-Founder. "As Zeta drives towards realizing our vision of solving CMOs' biggest challenges by making data actionable at every step of the customer journey, the acquisition of Acxiom Impact gets us there faster."
The additional capital comes 14 months after Zeta raised $120 million from a consortium led by FS Investments/Blackstone's GSO Capital Partners LP. The new financing will fuel the integration of Impact into Zeta's Gartner Magic-Quadrant-rated platform, grow its market penetration in the US, UK and International markets and accelerate the company's strategic acquisition strategy.
"When David and I started this company in 2007, we began with a big idea," said John Sculley, Zeta's Co-Founder and former CEO of Apple Computer and Pepsi Cola. "I'm proud of what we've accomplished so far and incredibly optimistic about what's to come. It's amazing to see how David and his team have taken Zeta to the next level by focusing on solving problems for the company's blue-chip client base."
Over the past three years, Zeta has invested heavily into extending and enhancing its SaaS-based marketing platform through organic initiatives and strategic acquisitions such as the purchase of the CRM division of eBay Enterprise, the marketing automation platform pioneer, ClickSquared, and the Actions division of Adchemy Inc., along with its patented machine learning platform. Today, Zeta has more than 1,300 employees operating in 25 offices across four continents.
Founded by David A. Steinberg and John Sculley in 2007, Zeta Interactive is a data-driven marketing technology pioneer whose SaaS-based marketing cloud helps 500+ Fortune 1000 and Middle Market brands acquire, retain and grow customer relationships through actionable data, advanced analytics and machine learning. The Company's highly-rated technology platform that's recognized in Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Digital Marketing Hubs (January 2016) and in its Magic Quadrant for Multichannel Campaign Management (April 2016) competes with Oracle, IBM, Salesforce and Adobe.