UK-based martech startup Audiense raises £3.8 million

UK-based Audiense, a martech company and Software-as-a-Service developer, has raised £3.8 million. The funding comes from investor and former chairman of King Digital (creators of Candy Crush) Mel Morris. The new investment will be used to support the company's ambitious growth plans, including investing in sales, improving its platform functionality, and expansion into North America.

Audiense is headquartered in London, and was founded in Spain in 2012 (as SocialBro) by CEO Javier Burón and CTO Alfredo Artiles. Audiense's software delivers consumer insights and consumer engagement capabilities to companies through a combination of highly-scalable social data, cognitive science and traditional marketing. Its solutions enable brands and agencies to build insights, acquire more customers and deliver superior marketing results through advertising campaigns. Audiense already works with some of the world's biggest brands, and their wide range of clients includes sports brands and Premier League football clubs, major news publishers, top digital agencies, leading clothing and music brands, and even the UK government.

“Four thousand Audiense customers are already enjoying the benefits of our SaaS capabilities, but we’re only just scratching the surface of the market," said Burón in a statement. "Companies are beginning to understand how vital consumer insights are to their future success or even to their continued existence. Massively positive feedback from our rapidly growing customer base would suggest we have the right solution at exactly the right time.”

“An estimated $15 billion will be spent on social marketing by businesses in the USA alone this year, and delivering more strategic and measurable value to those spending it is going to be key," added Mel Morris in a statement. "I believe the Audiense team and tech, packed as it is with genuine and deep expertise in socially-acquired data and insight, is superbly poised to help businesses extract maximum value from their social marketing budgets.”

Read more: Real wire