[ibimage==47472==Original==none==self==ibimage_align-center]Founded in 2010, Chicago-based YCharts, which provides a data and analytics platform for investors, now has nearly one million monthly visitors to its site. It drives roughly 500 trials of its software each day, and is on pace to hit 3X its year-over-year revenue in 2015.
Today, the company announced it closed a $6 million Series C round to complement that growth.
Morningstar, a locally-headquartered firm that conducts independent investment research, led the equity-based round, and Reed Elsevier, 12A, Amicus Capital Partners, Hyde Park Angels, and other individuals contributed, as well.
“The team has gone from 14 people to almost 50 since August, and we’re aggressively hiring sales and marketing folks, for the most part,” Shawn Carpenter, YCharts co-founder and CEO, said. “Given how well things have been going on the sales side, we started to take in additional capital so that we can be that much more aggressive in the marketplace, in terms of building our team.”
Carpenter said YCharts will use the funding — which brings the company’s total outside investment to $14.5M — to build an inside sales team, as well as an in-the-field sales team in spots across the country.
He said the team is also hiring account managers, customer service representatives, and developers. By year’s end, YCharts expects its employee base to be in the 70s, according to Carpenter.
Additionally, YCharts announced today the appointment of Jeremy Diamond to chief revenue officer.
Diamond helped take S&P Capital IQ to $30 million in revenue. He comes from Morningstar, where he most recently oversaw the buy side solutions, and he will lead YCharts’ enterprise sales team. Diamond will continue to serve on YCharts board of directors, as he as for the last three years as a Morningstar representative.
Carpenter said Diamond, who began his CRO role earlier in May, is a “perfect fit” for YCharts immediate need of growing its sales component. Indeed, continued growth and development is a theme that will permeate across all departments of YCharts, this year and beyond.
“We’re going to continue to build out the platform — a lot of investment to work on the product,” Carpenter said. “But the primary thing we’re working on this year is absorbing the growth that we’re going through — going from 14 to almost 50 people since August — and getting people trained, really just trying to absorb them into the organization. Recruiting is another big focus area for the rest of year, so we’re trying to attract really talented people who are interested in the financial market and the products that we’re building.”
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