Linkby, the ad tech start up led by Pedestrian co-founder Chris Wirasinha, has successfully raised an $4m in a Series A round.
This round was led by investors Perennial Private Investments, which has previously backed the likes of Koala, Instant Scripts, and Spriggy.
OIF Ventures, which led Linkby’s Seed round, followed on with an investment two times its pro-rata rights.
The Series A raise will enable Linkby to continue to grow its global teams across North America, the UK and Australia – which, after a recent flurry of key hires, now puts the team at 60+ – as well as supercharging its product roadmap.
Wirasinha said the raise is a testament to the hard work the team at Linkby has put in over the last four years.
“We’ve seen our markets in the US and UK grow to account for more than 80% of our total revenue, while using Australia as a testing ground for new launches,” he said.
“That includes our ‘Pubfeed’ product, which is now powering the infinite scroll experience across 50 global websites on both a CPM and CPC basis. We’re pumped to work with a huge range of brands from Aesop and Fenty to ALDI and Disney+ and are excited to ship product faster, scale our teams and expand further into international markets.”
Linkby’s platform is now used by more than 1,500 brands to create advertising campaigns across a global network of over 250 premium publishers, newsletters, and creators.
Ryan Sohn, co-founder and portfolio manager at Perennial Private Investments, said Linkby’s global footprint position is evidence of the positive impact the company is delivering for brands.
“Their platform takes a process that previously could take months and allows brands to do it in minutes, driving trust, awareness and performance,” he said.
“It’s rare for an Australian start-up to have achieved product market fit across the US and UK so rapidly and we’re thrilled to be partnering with Linkby to help them keep scaling and turn ‘Linkby’ into a verb!”
Jerry Stesel, co-founder and general partner at OIF Ventures, added: “We first partnered with Chris, Adrian and Andrew and the entire Linkby team in 2021 and we are thrilled to be backing them again on their next stage of growth.
“They are incredible operators and continue to impress us as they build a world-class team and product. We believe the team’s vision for transforming and redefining the way advertisers and brands partner with premium audience owners around the world will take Linkby to new heights.”
Recently, Wirasinha told Mediaweek “we’re learning so much from how to raise money from venture capital investors to how to grow internationally.”
He also explained that the US and UK are key markets for the start-up.
“Linkby’s two biggest markets are the US and UK respectively, so experiencing how to operate in new markets with their own distinct cultures has been an exciting part of the journey.
“The US market is our largest and accounts for half of the revenue of the business. We’re working closely with some of the biggest content creators in the world from the likes of USA Today in publishing to Morning Brew in newsletters.”
See also: Linkby’s Chris Wirasinha on his experience as a second-time founder