London-headquartered marketing tech group Yieldify has secured $11.5 million in Series A funding, courtesy of pledges from Google Ventures and SoftBank Capital.

Founded by brothers Jay and Meelan Radia in 2013, Yieldify helps retailers boost their on-site conversions by allowing them to target users with unique, personalised messages, based on traits of their online behaviour.

The company is currently serving over 1,000 brands, including household names such as Marks & Spencer, French Connection and Monarch, although its client roster may well see some growth following the recent injection of cash.

This week’s funding drive falls in the midpoint of a highly productive year – a period in which the company added a New York office and claimed Industry Choice of Publisher at the Performance Marketing Awards.

Yieldify also boasts physical presence in Berlin and Sydney in addition to its London HQ.

Rapid growth

The company went from strength to strength in 2014, reporting 480% in year-on-year growth and expanding to over 120 employees.

Ideal ground to build has come from consumers increasingly shopping online and retailers’ issues with cart abandonment showing few signs of abating. On the flipside, Jay Radia, CEO of Yieldify, believes that some tech providers have failed to properly seize on the opportunity at hand.

“Conversion optimisation over the past ten years had begun to stagnate,” he commented.

“If you take an honest look at the legacy optimisation tools, most of them are simply ‘following the follower.’ We believe that marketers are looking for a simpler way to achieve top-line growth from day one.”

With cash from Google Ventures and Softbank Capital, the company will be hoping to prove itself fully in New York whilst hiring more staff to service new customers.

Avid Larizadeh Duggan, general partner at Google Ventures, supported Radia’s thoughts – claiming his company to be a trailblazer in the abandonment space.

“Traditional customer abandonment solutions still haven’t cracked the code to retaining and converting online visitors on the web and mobile,” she states.

“Yieldify takes a novel approach to converting visitors into customers, enabling marketers to adapt and better understand online customer intent.”