Chicago-based start-up G2 Crowd announced that it has raised $55 million in its latest Series C fundraising round. The round was led by IVP, and witnessed participation from Accel and Emergence Capital. The round brings the company’s total funding raised to date to $100 million.
“We have a lot of work in front of us,” said Godard Abel, CEO and co-founder, “I’m feeling very excited about the opportunity to realize our dreams but also feeling a healthy pressure to invest that money wisely and build the company.”
G2 Crowd is an online platform that allows businesses to see user reviews of B2B software and services. As part of the deal, investor Jules Maltz will be joining G2’s Board of Directors. G2’s website makes over 500,000 verified user reviews available for close to 60,000 products, attracting nearly 2,000,000 users monthly.
Abel wants the funding to help push G2 Crowd to ringing the IPO bell eventually, and he believes IVP and Maltz can help the company reach that stage. IVP has helped numerous other companies through the IPO process, including Slack and Dropbox.
“He and I know and trust each other,” said Abel. “I think it’s great to be in a relationship already knowing we can be part of one team and work together well.”
The company will also use the funding to build out its philanthropic capabilities through its G2 Gives initiatives.
“This latest funding round will advance our vision to become the next Amazon for business,” said Abel in a press release. “We started as a way to help companies make better buying decisions. Now, the focus is on helping them reach their potential through digital transformation, more quickly than ever.”
With this new funding, the company intends to hire around 500 new staff members in Chicago across all departments over the next three to five years. It has already been shopping for a larger office. The company aims a 500% headcount increase at our Chicago and San Francisco offices, as well as overseas. They are also working to grow the user community, gather more reviews, develop deeper insights, and diversify the solution category coverage in emerging industries.
