TellApart Secures $13M in Financing From Bain Capital Ventures and Greylock Partners

BURLINGAME, CA--(Marketwire - Jun 13, 2011) - TellApart Inc. today announced a $13 million Series B round of funding led by Bain Capital Ventures. As part of the financing, Ajay Agarwal, managing director at Bain Capital Ventures, will join the TellApart Board of Directors. The latest capital infusion brings TellApart's total funding to $17.75 million.

The new financing supports TellApart's continued success with some of world's largest online retail brands that have selected TellApart to curate their customer data and power their online marketing. On average, TellApart's clients have experienced a three to five percent lift to their overall revenue through the use of Transactional Retargeting, the industry leading dynamic display ad remarketing solution. Transactional Retargeting is the first application atop the TellApart Customer Data Platform.

The TellApart Customer Data Platform computes a proprietary Customer Quality Score (CQScore) for each individual shopper. The CQScore is based on data collected from onsite behavior and identifies which visitors have the highest potential value. Transactional Retargeting relies on the CQScore to drive targeting decisions in real-time to reach only high-value prospects with personalized, product-specific display ads, delivered at optimal frequency. This ability to "tell apart" the best customer prospects has enabled TellApart to set new industry standards for performance in display advertising, including an average 7.5 percent user click-through rate (10x the industry average) and an average 4.5 percent conversion rate (2.5x the industry average).

"TellApart has really helped us understand the power of our customer data and turn that data into one of our most valuable sales tools," said Matt Lindenberg, associate director of marketing for Diapers.com. "Our relationship with TellApart is a true partnership that brings us both incremental revenue and transparency into exactly how we've earned this revenue."

TellApart's pricing model is the industry's only true pay-for-performance model, with a share of revenue paid only when a prospect converts to a customer by first clicking on a TellApart-generated ad and then making a purchase. This model offers retailers a no-risk, high-return solution.

"We fundamentally believe that customer data is the single most effective sales and marketing driver for retailers," said Josh McFarland, founder and CEO of TellApart. "While at Google, we recognized the enormous opportunity this data has for e-commerce growth, but it's one that most companies are unable to handle on their own and the data is too precious an asset to hand over to Google. TellApart exists to address this need by helping online commerce companies leverage customer data to dramatically increase sales."

"We believe that the next big opportunity in e-commerce is around deep customer analytics," said Ajay Agarwal, managing director at Bain Capital Ventures. "TellApart's combination of a world class founding team, rich technology platform and strong momentum positions them well to be the leader in this space. After speaking to dozens of online retailers big and small, we are confident that TellApart is the company to beat."

"We are exceptionally pleased to have Bain Capital Ventures leading this funding, and Ajay's skills as a former top enterprise sales and marketing executive will be a strong complement to our Board," continued McFarland. "Additionally, Bain Capital's broader network includes many large retailers, such as Toys"R"Us and Gymboree, and it has already proven to be a key asset in our relationship."

"Companies such as Amazon and Netflix became dominant players in their markets by mastering the art of analyzing and acting on customer data," said James Slavet, a partner at Greylock and a TellApart board member. "TellApart has built the expertise, infrastructure and access to data necessary to allow all e-commerce companies to maximize the value of their customer information."

About TellApart
Founded in 2009 by ex-Google product and engineering executives Josh McFarland and Mark Ayzenshtat, TellApart centers its vision on helping e-commerce firms drive incremental revenue through the use of their own customer data. It is backed by Greylock Partners, Bain Capital Ventures and many of Silicon Valley's most prominent angel investors, including: Ron Conway, Dick Costolo (CEO, Twitter), Reid Hoffman (Partner, Greylock; Founder and Executive Chairman, LinkedIn) and Jeff Jordan (former CEO, OpenTable).

TellApart's Customer Data Platform and Transactional Retargeting application have been rapidly adopted by dozens of top online retailers including: CafePress, Diapers.com, Drugstore.com, eBags and Hayneedle. The company is headquartered in Burlingame, CA.