SEMrush Raises $40 Million to Bring Competitive Intelligence and Search Analytics to More Than Two Million Digital Marketers

PHILADELPHIA, April 24, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

Greycroft, e.ventures, Siguler Guff, and other leading investors fund SEMrush's growth 

SEMrush, the leading competitive intelligence and end-to-end analytics platform for digital marketing professionals, announced today that it has raised a total of $40 million in funding led by Greycroft, Siguler Guff, and e.ventures.

SEMrush is the industry standard to improve insights, analytics, and measurement for digital marketers. It is used by leading brands, such as Booking.com, eBay, HP, and BNP Paribas. "In today's increasingly connected world, many companies win or lose based on their marketing strategy, specifically their digital strategy," said Oleg Shchegolev, CEO and co-founder of SEMrush. "In 2017, digital ad spend finally surpassed TV. While competition in digital marketing intensifies, SEMrush is dedicated to continue helping marketers all over the world build and execute winning marketing strategies."

"SEMrush has emerged as the global leader in digital marketing software and a must-have solution for virtually all competitive companies," said Dylan Pearce, Partner at Greycroft. "With its world-class technical talent, we believe SEMrush can become the next great technology platform."

The funding will allow SEMrush to expand its Machine Learning powered market intelligence capabilities and proprietary database. The database supports more than 125 countries through many signals and data sources. These comprehensive data sets include search engine marketing (SEM) data such as one of the world's largest backlink indexes, user behavior data, social media performance metrics, and brand mentions. SEMrush's software combines and analyzes these signals to provide users with actionable insights. This enables clients to answer complex questions such as, "How can my page load or bounce rate impact my ranking in search engines?", "What backlinks might be bad for my website?", or "What title or topic should I choose to make my article perform?"

"Siguler Guff is proud to be the first institutional backer of the company, and recognizes the tremendous commercial value that SEMrush brings to its clients, small and large, in over 150 countries," said Roman Simonov, Managing Director of Siguler Guff. "As the firm grows at high pace, this funding round will take the company to the next level in terms of products offered and verticals covered."

SEMrush will also expand to additional platforms such as Amazon and Baidu, as new and existing platforms become vital to any digital marketing strategy. Furthermore, the funding will drive strategic acquisitions, enable SEMrush to scale the executive team, and support its best-of-breed technical expertise.

"The most important thing I can have really is data. Data is my currency. I need to support initiatives, business cases - any tools that give me insight I find incredibly useful," said Nick Wilsdon, Product Owner, Search, Vodafone Group. "Then when it comes to measuring these initiatives, the reporting comes in handy. SEMrush is a very solid package that delivers exactly that."

Headquartered in the US, SEMrush has roughly doubled revenue each year since its inception in 2008, while remaining profitable. The company works with seven out of the top 10 adword spenders and over 25% of the Fortune 500, providing SEM and social media strategy insights, as well as digital PR performance and content marketing effectiveness. It has significantly expanded its product set over the past two years, and was recently recognized as the Best SEO Software Suite in the US, UK and won the European Search Awards 2017.

About SEMrush:  

SEMrush is a leading digital marketing suite that enables users to be front-runners in their industries. Trusted by more than 2,000,000 marketing professionals worldwide and 10,000+ partner agencies, SEMrush ensures customers are well equipped to increase their revenue and achieve online visibility for any business.

About Greycroft 

Greycroft is a leading venture capital firm focused on investments in the Internet and mobile markets. With offices in the two media capitals of the world - New York and Los Angeles - Greycroft is uniquely positioned to serve entrepreneurs who have chosen us as their partners. Greycroft leverages an extensive network of media and technology industry connections to help entrepreneurs gain visibility, build strategic relationships, bring their products to market, and build successful businesses. Greycroft manages in excess of $1 billion and has made over 150 investments since inception in leading companies including Acorns, App Annie, Boxed, Braintree, Buddy Media, Everything But The House, Extreme Reach, Huffington Post, Icertis, JW Player, Maker Studios, Plated, Scopely, Shipt, TheRealReal, Thrive Market, Trunk Club, Venmo, WideOrbit, and Yeakha. For more information please visit http://www.greycroft.com .

About Siguler Guff:  

Siguler Guff is a multi-strategy private equity investment firm which, together with its affiliates, has approximately $13 billion of assets under management. With more than 20 years of experience investing as a firm in the private markets, Siguler Guff seeks to generate strong, risk-adjusted returns by focusing opportunistically on market niches.

About e.ventures:  

e.ventures is a global venture capital firm with an early-stage investment approach in the markets of Adtech, Commerce, Fintech, Media, Mobile and Software. It was founded 1997 in Santa Barbara, California and has since grown to invest in five different regions worldwide: United States, Europe, Russia, Asia and Brazil.