ROKT announced it has completed a $15 million Series “B” investment led by Moelis Australia Asset Management, part of Moelis & Company. In addition, Time Inc. participated in this round along with existing investors including John Ho, Lachlan Murdoch, Greg Roebuck and Square Peg Capital.
ROKT will use the investment to accelerate development of its market-leading transaction marketing technology, expand its management ranks, ramp up international market growth as well as acquire strategic assets that will strengthen its value proposition.
“ROKT is uniquely positioned at the intersection of digital media and commerce,” said John Ho, Janchor Partners’ chief investment officer. “Both areas are showing enormous growth, with e-commerce on track to be a $3 trillion market in the next few years and performance-driven digital media achieving double digit growth. ROKT is right in the middle of these two areas of immense growth. Its own growth potential is significant and I remain confident it will be fully realized.”
“This funding round is all about stepping up the speed and scale of ROKT’s growth. It comes at a time when ROKT is experiencing dramatic momentum worldwide,” said Bruce Buchanan, ROKT’s CEO. “It gives us the opportunity to build upon our dynamism as well as achieve more and better outcomes for our clients and partners.
“Over the past year ROKT expanded its presence in the United States, growing revenue there eightfold, entered the Canadian market, launched operations in the United Kingdom, made key hires for critical roles and increased headcount in all segments of the business. ROKT is a very different company from just a couple of years ago when we operated out of a single office in the suburbs of Sydney,” Buchanan said.
ROKT has worked with over 2,000 clients, including such brands as eBay, Ticketmaster, Expedia, Hotels.com, Time Inc, Groupon, Dominos and Emirates to help achieve better online commerce results by improving customer engagements and delivering meaningful native monetization. ROKT also works with thousands of performance marketers focused on acquiring large numbers of new customers at the point of transaction. The company’s solutions deliver consistent results for its clients. For example, ROKT improved GrubHub’s conversion rate 600% among the food delivery service’s key demographics.
“We are pleased to be supporting and working with the experienced and high quality ROKT team as they bring the benefits of its platform to more advertisers and ecommerce businesses as part of their global expansion,” said Ben Wong, a Moelis Managing Director.
Time Inc. became an investor in this round after its Synapse unit worked with ROKT over the past 12 months driving significant business results.
“Time Inc. is pleased to invest in ROKT. As a customer, we have had a great experience with ROKT’s technology and platform and have seen, first-hand, its ability to impact the marketplace. From the perspective of a customer, the ROKT partnership is a success for us,” said Erik Moreno, Time Inc.’s Executive Vice President and President, Corporate Development, New Ventures & Investments. “We look forward to working with Bruce and his team as they execute on their vision for the future of digital marketing and commerce.”
ROKT’s approach to consumer engagement centers on treating the individual with respect and courtesy. Interactions won’t occur unless and until the consumer consents to welcome a brand into her/his world. While this isn’t a new concept, ROKT has been able to yield 3 times greater returns than other digital channels.
“Since our investment in ROKT we have seen the business improve on every dimension: the product has evolved significantly; the value delivered to advertisers and e-commerce operators has grown dramatically; and, most importantly, Bruce’s team has gone from strength-to-strength,” said Paul Bassat, Square Peg’s Co-founder. “Our participation in this round reaffirms our belief that ROKT is on a path to truly alter how brands acquire and engage with customers in a way that will yield unmatched results.”
