“There’s lots to do. The first thing, we want to keep growing. The majority of the funds are going to go into building our presence here (in the US), building our teams here and expanding our client footprint, which is going really well,” John Sintras, president, US and multinational of Mutinex, told Mediaweek following news the marketing measurement start-up raised $17.5m AUD in funding.
Led by Marbruck Investments and supported by EVP and Archangel Ventures, the fresh funding brings the MMM platform’s value to $132.5m AUD.
Sintras, who has grown the Mutinex office in the US to operate across multiple categories and customers, said the capital will help the company grow its team on the ground and evolve its product to meet the market’s needs.
“The product is already fantastic, but there are lots of great improvements that have been activated this year and lots more on the roadmap over the next 12 months, so that (funding) is really going to help us to accelerate that too.”
“It’s all in the service of clients,” Sintras added. “We want clients that are absolutely thrilled and for whom we’re solving pain points. Essentially, it means we hopefully get to have more great clients that attract even more great clients, and the snowball continues.”
The US team, which consists of almost a dozen people, is set to double over the next three months as a result of the raise, Sintras said.
This includes the recent appointment of the company’s new sales director of North America, Lamar Tuten. Sintras noted: “I’m thrilled to have him on board. It’s only week one, but it’s great to have him hit the ground running.
“(Tuten) will be building out his team. We’ll be building out product teams, and customer success teams as we scale. I’m thrilled to bits with the people that we’ve already attracted there.
“As the customers grow, we’ll grow that team as well because it’s all about customer success. Otherwise, we don’t have a business.”
Sintras also noted that the raise will have a flow-on effect on the rest of the business in Australia and other markets.
“There’s still lots more growth in that marketplace and we’re really committed to seeing that out. There’s opportunities in APAC and Danny [Danny Bass, chief revenue officer] is looking for a head of sales out of Singapore, which will be super exciting to start leveraging as many clients have asked us about expanding our footprint.
“We do have lots of markets that are already servicing out of Australia in APAC, so it’d be good to keep that expanding as well,” he said.
“Everybody rises on the tide. The product improves and that helps everybody.”
Sintras added: “The US is the biggest market in the world. If we’re disproportionately successful there, then everybody benefits from that growth in terms of more investment to put into the rest of the organisation as we grow.”
Mutinex co-founders Matt Farrugia and Henry Innis both said they were pleased to have raised the funding to support its growth into new markets.
“We are razor-focused on improving our fundamental processes including onboarding speed, usage of data and expanding our predictive analytics capability and suite.”
Tom Aouad, investor at Marbruck, said: “Mutinex’s phenomenal path to date has hit an exciting inflection point, driven by their AI advancements that allow clients to replace traditional marketing consultants.
“Their technical team’s capabilities and efficient enterprise onboarding through DataOS and Growth OS, coupled with an impressive US client base, set them apart from competitors in market. We’re excited to partner up with the team at Mutinex as their innovative approach and strong momentum have us excited about the future.”
Justin Lipman, partner at EVP also reaffirmed his confidence in the scale-up. “The company has exceptional retention rates with almost every customer we speak to providing glowing reports.
“It is clear the product is delivering significant ROI across its customer base making adoption across the market straightforward. Mutinex is far and away the largest investment in EVP’s history at c. $19m invested over the last two years.”
Rayn Ong, partner at Archangel Ventures, said: “In venture investing, you don’t often see software companies scale their revenue following a triple, triple, double, double, double (T2D3) growth trajectory. Henry’s team at Mutinex has achieved more than that, by delivering very high ROI to their blue-chip customers.
“Armed with a strong moat, I’m very bullish about the AI capabilities that will come next. We are grateful to be one of the lucky investors of this fast rising super star Aussie startup.”
In line with the announcement, with highly experienced chief revenue officer, Danny Bass, has now settled in his CRO role on the executive team after joining in July. Co-founder Matt Farrugia will be taking this opportunity to transition from his global role as chief customer officer into an APAC focused leadership role.
The funding comes after Mat Baxter, who joined Mutinex in May, stepped down from his role as APAC CEO and transitioned to a board advisor role last month.
See also: Mat Baxter quits Mutinex, board persuades him to stay connected as an advisor
–
Top image: John Sintras