With $5M in new funding, SIM Partners is poised to meet rising demand for 'near me' marketing

Written by James Risley
Published on Feb. 03, 2017
With $5M in new funding, SIM Partners is poised to meet rising demand for 'near me' marketing

We’re used to seeing ads based on our browsing habits, but ads based on where you’re located are a big opportunity for marketers. SIM Partners just raised $5 million to make location-based marketing easier, in a round led by River Cities Capital Funds and Jump Capital.

The company’s Velocity platform automates the process of marketing to drive up visibility of local listings, create location-based marketing content and offer insights into how local content affects individual locations.

“We see huge growth opportunities for SIM Partners because the Velocity platform delivers a proven ROI for clients,” Sach Chitnis, managing director at Jump Capital, said in a statement.

Both Jump Capital and River Cities are backing SIM Partners for a second time.

According to the company, SIM Partners has more than 50 clients automating marketing at over 40,000 locations. The company hopes to use the funding to capitalize on the growth in the location-based marketing industry.

SIM Partners says searches that include “near me” are up 3,400 percent since 2011 and 50 percent of people who perform local searches visit a business that day. However, that kind of search volume is hard to fully understand, so Velocity automates the process for industries as varied as consumer retail to healthcare.

“We appreciate the ongoing support from our investors, and we are excited to drive innovation and continue to provide value for our customers,” said Jon Schepke, CEO of SIM Partners, in the statement. “The demand we are seeing for our product in multiple verticals is strong, particularly given the tremendous amount of growth in healthcare."

Image via Shutterstock

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