Sideqik, the influencer marketing and social engagement platform whose mission is to help brands authentically engage with their customers and the people they trust, announced it has raised $5 million in its Series A round, bringing their total funding to $6.5 million. Jackson Square Ventures led the round with participation from Fuqua Capital, Tom Noonan – founder of Internet Security Systems and director for ICE/NYSE and Manhattan Associates – and continued support from their lead pre-Seed investors Bee Partners and Bonfire Ventures.

The company has emerged as a leader in the social engagement and influencer marketing categories, with sales growing nearly 900 percent in the past two years alone. Their innovations around using artificial intelligence (A.I.) to power marketing insights and engagement led to them recently being named as one of the 10 Most Innovative Companies by the Technology Association of Georgia. These accolades are due to the company’s focus on using technology to help customers understand who is influencing their brand, competition, and market, using those insights to build authentic relationships with their customers and influencers, and measuring the impact and ROI of those efforts.

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“Marketers today are overwhelmed by the amount of data at their disposal,” says Jeremy Haile, Co-Founder and CEO, Sideqik. “The challenge is using that data to make decisions and improving how they engage with their customers and the influencers that speak to them. As consumer attention shifts more and more to mobile and social, it’s increasingly important that brands are able to engage with them there, and it’s our mission to provide an innovative platform that helps them do that in an intelligent, authentic, and measurable way.”

Looking to the future, Sideqik will continue innovating through its products by using its AI-driven intelligence to help brands better understand their market, competition, and consumers — informed by more than sixteen million online profiles and over two billion social posts. Sideqik will also be adding their first predictive analytics capabilities, allowing marketers to better understand the trends driving their brands, influencers, and marketplace.

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Sideqik plans to use this investment to add over 60 employees across their Atlanta headquarters, Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Europe, and continue providing a top-notch level of service to their growing enterprise customer base.

Sideqik serves the largest and most innovative brands in the world – Coca-Cola, Universal Music, Procter & Gamble, Under Armour, Turner, and Home Depot– who use Sideqik to better engage with their customers and the social influencers in their industry.

“Social engagement and influencer marketing have emerged as the fastest growing segment of the marketing technology stack,” said Greg Gretsch, founding partner and managing director, Jackson Square Ventures. “We’re excited to partner with Sideqik on their mission to help companies adapt to this connected world we live in, and to engage with their customers in a better, more authentic, and more engaging way.”

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