BPI France et al. inject $50m into Launchmetrics

Seventure, Cipio Partners and Famille C joined BPI France in the round. The funding will help the business to grow from $25m to $100m in revenues over the next four years, via organic growth and acquisitions.

Launchmetrics is planning to make 150 new marketing, sales, software development and data hires within in the next two years. 

Additionally, it will focus on product development, particularly on visual recognition algorithms allowing the automatic tagging of brands, products and people from images created or shared by social media influencers.

The capital will be used to scale operations in existing territories, including the US and Europe, as well as expanding into Asia and the Middle East.

Launchmetrics was founded in 2016 by the merger of Augure, an influencer marketing software specialist based in Paris, and Fashion GPS, a technology provider for the fashion industry headquartered in New York.

Previous funding
Augure first received financing in 2003, from OTC Asset Management, SGAM and CPR Private Equity.

The second round took place in 2005, when SGAM and OTC Asset Management contributed €1.25m each, with management holding onto a significant minority stake. In 2006, SGAM and OTC were joined by Ouest Ventures for a €4.5m capital injection. The deal saw Augure's management retain their minority stake.

Subsequently, Augure received €8m in 2008, when Ventech and Serena Capital came on board alongside existing investors SGAM, OTC and Ouest Ventures.

In 2015, Augure secured €15m from existing investors Serena Capital, Ventech, OTC Agregator and Amundi, which were joined for this fifth round by Seventure and BPI France.

Company
Augure was founded in 2002, and Fashion GPS in 2006. Today, the merged entity Launchmetrics is a marketing platform and analytics service for the fashion, luxuries and cosmetics industries, serving clients such as Givenchy, Swarovski, Swatch Group and Adidas.

The business, with operational quarters in Paris and business quarters in New York, employs 180 people, of whom 40 are data scientists and analysts. It currently generates revenues of around $25m. 

The company's new tool, to be launched this fall, allows brands to understand how various marketing and communications activities impact their brand equity across different voices, channels, media types, time periods, products and regions. 

People
Launchmetrics – Michael Jais (CEO).
BPI France – Nicolas Herschtel (deputy managing director).

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• Topics
• Expansion
• France
• Consumer
• Media
• France
• BPI France
• Seventure (SPEF)