Amsterdam-based community engagement platform inSided, today announced a € 6 million Series A investment round, led by global venture capital fund Ventech, together with Fortino Capital and henQ. The investment follows after welcoming large enterprise customers and a fast expansion across Europe.
inSided was founded in 2010 and is one of the world’s leading platform and service providers for customer communities. The Dutsch company helps its clients to improve customer intimacy and profitability. inSided provides a way for businesses to connect with their customers. With inSided, customers can ask questions, find answers, co-create, share experiences and provide reviews on products and services.
The fresh capital will be used to support the ongoing internationalization strategy as well as increasing the speed of product innovation. According to the young company, inSided doubles in size every year, currently has 60+ employees and in the last months expanded to France, Germany, Ireland, Finland and Spain. In the coming 12 months, inSided will hire between 50 and 100 new employees worldwide to strengthen its team and market leadership in Europe.
“While many companies are active on external social media, inSided provides a company owned social platform for brands like Sonos, TomTom and Ahold” expains Robin van Lieshout, CEO of inSided. He continues: “Many companies now build their online presence on borrowed ground, which can be dangerous in the long term”.
While traditional forum-based communities have been around for decades, inSided has added technology to reach existing company business goals, with results like 80% less calls to the contact centre leading to over € 3.5 million saved per year for T-Mobile, or increasing NPS by 19 points for its client Rabobank.
“By investing together with henQ and Fortino Capital, we can leverage experience, effectiveness and operational strength.” says Audrey Soussan, Principal at Ventech. “Working with this international team of investors we are really excited to strengthen the global ambitions of inSided”.
