The Uphill Battle of B2B Marketing: A Success Story Integrate announces its fourth round of venture funding, but founder and CEO says, "This one's not about the money."
By Jeremy Bloom Edited by Dan Bova
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Today, Integrate announced its fourth round of venture funding. When you find yourself in the midst of summiting a mountain, you rarely take a break to reflect on the milestones that got you to where you are now. However, I learned late in my athletic career the importance of doing so, in addition to ensuring that the reflective period is brief.
In a way, this is a powerful collective moment of reflection for everyone who has ever joined the Integrate team and for me as Founder/CEO. Over the past seven years, we've encountered every obstacle imaginable -- some of which almost ended our journey prematurely. For the past four consecutive quarters, the business has been cash flow positive and has experienced a significant 300-percent revenue growth. It's only through a meritocracy-ingrained culture combined with outstanding team competence that the company finds itself in a considerable position of strength today.
In 2013, when I took over as CEO, my main objective was to double down on investing in software development to bring a SaaS platform to market that would centralize the disparate marketing systems for B2B marketers. In hindsight, it was an ambitious goal for an over-100-person media company that had zero dollars in software revenue. Many people on the peripheral were not shy about informing us that such a transition would lead to an almost certain death. The basis for the doomsday prediction was a long list of media companies who had attempted and failed in the past. However, our Board and the team were not only up for the challenge but excited by it.
By 2014, an evolved Integrate was born with a new go-to-market approach and a laser focus on advancing the archaic methods of generating and evaluating B2B demand marketing efforts. Three and a half years later, Integrate has generated over $150 million and helped to modernize some of the most sophisticated B2B marketers.
Our goal is simple: Make Our Customers Wildly Successful. It's a simple Mission Statement, but any operator will tell you that it's easy to get distracted by all the outside noise while building a company. We're simply obsessed with customer success.
The announcement that we made today is much more than a fundraising effort. The headline is that four distinguished Founders/CEOs, who have generated nearly five billion dollars of shareholder value and changed the DNA of marketing, are joining our team:
- Scott Dorsey, Founder/CEO of ExactTarget (acquired by Salesforce).
- Reggie Bradford, Founder/CEO of Vitrue (acquired by Oracle).
- David Karnstedt, CEO of Efficient Frontier (acquired by Adobe).
- Dan Springer, CEO of Responsys (IPO and acquired by Oracle).
These four operators have made B2B customers more successful than any other quartet of CEOs. In addition, some of them have never invested in a private company. I've spent a meaningful amount of time with them during the process, and we enjoyed some fantastic working sessions together. It's with humility and honor that we welcome them to the Integrate team.
We're now heads-down focused on continuing our journey to automate the top of the funnel for B2B marketers. We have two new products in Beta, and we're very much looking forward to rolling them out to our broader customer base in the coming months.
Thank you to everyone who believed in us -- our loyal customers, investors, peers, friends, and team. As you summit your own metaphorical mountain, remember that strong team players are vital to your business' success. Without our supporters and contributors, we wouldn't have reached the milestone we announced today -- and not just with our funds. Because even in growth challenges and venture funding, it's not just about the money.
