The idea that partnerships represent the third growth category, beyond sales and marketing, has been backed in a sucessful funding round by Impact, the global leader in partnership automation.
Impact, a partnership automation technology provider, has raised $US75 million ($A104 million) in a funding round led by Providence Strategic Growth, the growth equity affiliate of Providence Equity Partners.
As a significant source of incremental business growth and new revenue streams, Impact believes partnerships are the new business category and third main channel for enterprise revenue growth.
While sales and marketing have long been viewed as the primary sources of growth, Impact says they are no longer enough. This is where partnerships have emerged as the third major growth driver.
Recently enterprises have heavily invested in automating sales and marketing to improve processes and organisations. Impact says partnership automation will be equally transformative. The tech provider says its platform automates partnership discovery, recruitment, onboarding, engagement and optimisation.
“What was once seen as an offshoot or hybrid of sales and marketing, partnerships are now fueling 50% or more revenue growth for some companies, and representing as much as 25% of total revenue,” says Impact managing director for Asia Pacific, Adam Furness.
“Enterprises across the region are demanding automation to help them scale in this new category of partnerships, similar to the automation they’ve used in other categories such as sales and marketing."
The new Partnership Cloud by Impact aims to maximise the opportunity in partnerships, via automation, across the spectrum: traditional affiliates, influencers, strategic partners, mobile applications, premium publishers and other third-party channels.
Impact says its most mature clients leverage the Partnership Cloud to expand across all types of partnerships, from traditional affiliates to influencers to strategic B2B partnerships and more to become the fastest-growing revenue channel.
"By building native software integration partnerships with social media platforms, Impact enables a marketplace of hospitality services to establish partnerships with airlines, it allows a fashion-forward sportswear brand to work with YouTube influencers, or a major direct-to-consumer mattress brand to establish partnerships with chiropractors. The types of emerging partnerships supported by Impact’s Partnership Cloud are virtually limitless,” says Furness.
The new funding will accelerate platform development, further go-to-market and expansion across the Asia Pacific, and initiatives to fuel both organic and inorganic growth.
Furness says the funding round will ensure Impact continues to expand rapidly across the Asia Pacific region, which will include establishing offices in China and Japan, doubling the Asia Pacific team and on-boarding more than fifty new enterprises onto the platform.
The client on-boarding goes beyond most software post-sales service, with the creation of the Impact Academy to educate enterprise clients on how to maximise the platform's capabilibites and fully harness new revenue streams from partnerships.
This announcement follows a landmark year for Impact, in which they completed the acquisition of Mediarails, the leading CRM for influencer discovery, recruitment and optimisation as the firm continues to build out an integrated cloud platform in their bid to become the premier partnership automation software.
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