Here’s a new benchmark of money to be raised. Copenhagen-based Trustpilot announces it has raise a massive $25 million (€18.28 million) funding round led by DFJ Espirit’s London and Menlo Park offices. Additionally the round saw participation from all existing investors, which include Denmark’s SEED capital, Index Ventures, and Northzone. Trustpilot was founded in 2007 and now counts 160 employees in Copenhagen, London, and New York.
The company could be seen sort of as a Yelp style service for e-commerce. They collect user reviews from customers and using a weighted metric, dependant on how many people have reviewed a particular service and how old a review is, give an averaged score. Requests for reviews are sent by businesses that have partnered with the service after a sale has been made, retaining engagement with customers and helping to ensure a quality service. Since each review is connected to a sale, and its respective order number, businesses can easily check complaints and track back to fix individual problems.
The company now provides over 70,000 ecommerce businesses with ‘Trustscores’ based on six million reviews. Growth is solid on the ecommerce side,with 2,000 new merchants and 300,000 new customers added to the community every month. Their largest customers include Travelocity, Mazuma Mobile, B&H, lastminute.com, Express Watches and ebookers. Trustpilot’s rankings are said to also greatly influence Google’s shopping and seller rating program.
Peter Mühlmann, Trustpilot’s CEO and founder, comments in a statement: “Trustpilot’s unique technology links each consumer review directly to the purchase transaction. Combined with our intelligent fraud detection, the quality of the reviews on the Trustpilot platform is unsurpassed. This new investment will enable us to expand to new markets and continue to improve the power and potential of online reviews for consumers and our business customers.”
Trustpilot has now fundraised a total of $38.4 million, with its last $13.4 million put in by Index Ventures in December of 2012.
