This London startup helps e-commerce brands to harness power of fans, logs in $25 million

Driving growth, increasing customer acquisition and returns across the marketing activity spectrum have become essential to the successful functioning of any growth-obsessed e-commerce brand. Cashing on this trend is London-based customer advocacy platform Mention Me. The platform has secured a $25 million Series B round to develop its technology that helps brands connect with their fans.

The funding was led by Octopus Ventures and saw the participation of Eight Roads Ventures. The startup will use the funds to make every brand think advocacy-first by expanding into the U.S., investing in its partner network (which includes Klaviyo, TrustPilot, Ometria and SAP) and developing its product offering. This platform will also look at enhancing its technology to apply AI and machine-learning to referral data. This will help brands to effectively identify their biggest fans to drive customer advocacy.

Founded in London in 2013 by Andy Cockburn and Tim Boughton, the customer advocacy platform had earlier raised $7 million in 2018. The company’s unique referral engineering technology has already delivered more than 4.5 million referrals totalling more than $1.5 billion in revenue for clients globally. Its 450-strong client base includes Puma, Pret a Manger, insurtech unicorn Bought By Many, Bloom & Wild and international fashion retailer ASOS. The funding will also be used to grow the team following a series of senior hires.

Andy Cockburn, CEO and Co-Founder of Mention Me said: “With third-party data disappearing, paid social delivering diminishing returns and consumers increasingly overwhelmed by endless brand advertising, our technology puts advocacy at the heart of marketing to reconnect marketers and consumers. Our aim is to enable all businesses to harness the exponential power of their fans, inspiring every CEO and CMO to think advocacy-first.”

Octopus Ventures principal Uthish Ranjan, who will join Mention Me’s board, said, “Mention Me’s pioneering approach to customer advocacy and impressive growth trajectory is creating a new strategic channel of marketing technology.”