WALTHAM, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Alignable, the social network for small business owners, today announced it has closed a funding round of $8 million led by new investor Mayfield (Menlo Park, California). The financing also included participation by the company’s existing investors Saturn Partners, NextView Ventures, and Lead Edge Capital.
“For Mayfield, it’s always about championing the entrepreneur,” said Navin Chaddha, Managing Director of Mayfield. “At Alignable, we have the rockstar team of Eric & Venkat - a successful small business advocate & a proven serial entrepreneur respectively. We’ve been impressed by how the company has attracted a notoriously fragmented and elusive audience—small business owners—almost entirely through viral growth. With small businesses responsible for over 50% of GDP, we’re thrilled to be investing in their definitive trusted network.”
Mayfield is a 45 year old venture capital firm with $2.6 billion under management. Since 1969, the Firm has invested in over 550 companies, resulting in over 113 IPOs and more than 150 mergers and acquisitions. Some recent notable investments include Marketo (NASDAQ: MKTO), Solarcity (NASDAQ:SCTY) and Rubicon Project (NASDAQ:RUBI) and a couple of consumer-focused current investments include ride-sharing service Lyft, enthusiast community site Massdrop and mobile fashion marketplace Poshmark.
Launched in January 2014, Alignable has grown rapidly to over 7,000 communities across all 50 states and Canada. Alignable helps business owners discover, meet, and stay in touch with other owners in their hyper-local community. They’re referring customers to each other, cross-promoting, organizing town events, swapping advice, and building the type of deep, long-lasting local relationships that help them succeed. So far, over half a million connections have been made between small business owners on Alignable.
“We founded Alignable with a bold vision: to unite the 175 million small business owners within their communities and across the globe,” said Eric Groves, co-founder and CEO of Alignable. “The response from our members we’ve connected has been incredible. Small business owners are isolated by the very nature of their work, and they truly value having an easy way to reach out and build relationships that unlock new ways to grow their businesses and succeed.”
Alignable was created by Groves, a longtime SVP at Constant Contact (NASDAQ: CTCT), and serial entrepreneur Venkat Krishnamurthy. Krishnamurthy was inventor and co-founder of dental giant Invisalign (NASDAQ: ALGN). While at Stanford, he earned an Academy Award for Technical Achievement from the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences for his pioneering inventions in the area of three-dimensional scanning software.
Scott Booth of Lead Edge Capital said, “As an early investor in Alibaba (NASDAQ: BABA), I’ve seen first hand how groundbreaking technology can empower small businesses. Alignable has all of the pieces in place to become the definitive global social network for small business owners.”
With this new round of funding, Alignable has raised a total of $12 million in two separate rounds. The company plans to use the latest funding to continue to invest in building the best product for its members and expanding its base.
About Alignable
Alignable (alignable.com) is the free social network for small business owners. Using Alignable’s platform, small business owners connect with others nearby, within their industries, and across North America based on their interests. More than 7,000 communities across North America are using Alignable to build business networks to grow their businesses and succeed. Headquartered in Waltham, MA, Alignable is a privately-held company with the backing of prominent investors in small business, networking, and data, including Mayfield, Saturn Partners, NextView Ventures, Boston Seed, CrunchFund, Kensington and Lead Edge Capital.