HappyOrNot raises $25M in growth financing to strengthen its position as the market leader in real-time customer and employee satisfaction feedback
The financing round, led by Northern European growth capital firm Verdane, will also enable HappyOrNot to enhance its analytics and insights capabilities, and expand its engineering and sales teams
–
As covered by TechCrunch, Reuters, Sifted, and more.
–
HappyOrNot (www.happy-or-not.com), the Finland and Florida-based company behind the globally recognised ‘Smiley’ feedback system – relied upon by the likes of McDonald’s, the San Francisco 49ers, London Heathrow Airport, and the NHS – has raised $25M in a growth financing round, led by Northern European growth capital firm, Verdane (www.verdane.com). As part of the round, Verdane also acquired secondary shares. Verdane invests in tech-enabled businesses to accelerate their growth, and has helped build companies such as Boozt, CRF Health, and EasyPark.
Existing investor Northzone (www.northzone.com), the Stockholm, London, and NY-based VC firm (with a track record for backing Nordic success stories including Spotify, Klarna, and Trustpilot), also participated in the round, which takes HappyOrNot’s total funding to-date to over $40M.
The investment will be used to further consolidate HappyOrNot’s position as the market leader in real-time customer and employee satisfaction tracking, with Verdane’s software expertise enabling the company to advance its analytics and insights capabilities. Furthermore, HappyOrNot will use the financing to strengthen its engineering, marketing, and sales teams across its fast growing commercial hubs of Amsterdam and West Palm Beach, as well as its headquarters and product hub in Tampere.
HappyOrNot, which has nearly 4,000 clients in 135 countries, provides companies with real-time, actionable analytics and insights to advance customer and employee satisfaction, enhance operational efficiency, and increase revenue. It presents and packages customer and employee feedback data (visualized as a four-point scale from ‘smile’ to ‘frown’) so that organisations can tweak specific aspects of their service in accordance with what customers and staff actually want.
HappyOrNot’s terminals, which have so far received 1.3 billion feedback responses are designed to be as simple and instantly understandable as possible for users, while the real-time data and corresponding insights for organisations are sophisticated and flexible.
According to a 2018 report by Research And Markets, the global customer experience management market size is expected to reach USD 32.49 billion by 2025, progressing at a CAGR of 22.9% during the forecast period.
Heikki Väänänen, HappyOrNot CEO and co-founder, comments: “We are the undisputed market leader in our space, working with nearly 4,000 organisations in 135 countries, and this fresh injection of capital will help us to further consolidate our position. In addition to investing in the core business, we will continue to innovate alongside our customers and create an even more advanced suite of analytics and insights solutions that help them to make better-informed decisions that improve numerous aspects of their business. We are hugely excited to have Verdane, renowned for its software expertise, on board for the next stage of our journey.”
Janne Holmia, Principal at Verdane, comments: “Verdane invests in high growth, technology-enabled companies in Northern Europe, and HappyOrNot fits our portfolio perfectly. We’re looking forward to helping HappyOrNot scale even further, continue to win major brands as customers, and bolster its analytics and insights capabilities. With the knowledge we possess as a leading growth equity investor in software, combined with HappyOrNot’s market dominance, and the vast potential of the customer experience market, we are confident that together we will achieve huge success.”
Marta Sjögren, Partner at Northzone, adds: “There is enormous potential in the real time CX analytics market as companies across all industries wise up to how important it is to listen to the opinions of consumers and staff, and act on them in real time. HappyOrNot is known all over the world from their presence in airports, but it’s their growth across retail, healthcare, travel, and lifestyle industries that makes the future really exciting. This is yet another huge milestone in HappyOrNot’s journey to creating a global happiness index, and thereby redefining what good service looks like vertical by vertical. In a world where instant feedback is often mainly broadcast in a one-way communication stream on social media, being able to provide it to staff in the service industry in an actionable, realtime format is truly a game-changer.”
About HappyOrNot
HappyOrNot helps businesses improve their customer experience and employee engagement through the globally recognised Smiley feedback management system. The company, founded in 2009, has nearly 4,000 clients in 135 countries and has collected over 1.3 billion impressions to date.
Clients include McDonald’s, London Heathrow Airport, as well as many Fortune 500 businesses in the transportation, retail, healthcare, entertainment/venue, and service industries. Headquartered in Finland, HappyOrNot has offices in the U.S., Germany, France, Netherlands, and around the globe, employing over 150 people. Its reseller network comprises of over 110 organizations. For more information please visit www.happy-or-not.com
About Verdane
Verdane has helped tech-enabled companies accelerate their growth and scale their businesses internationally since 2003, with funds close to EUR 1.8 billion in total committed capital. Fast-growing software, consumer internet, energy or high-technology industry businesses benefit from Verdane’s active ownership in both majority and minority investments; individual companies and portfolios. With over 45 employees and offices in Berlin, Copenhagen, Helsinki, London, Oslo, and Stockholm, Verdane aims to be the preferred growth partner to tech-enabled businesses in Northern Europe. www.verdane.com
About Northzone
Northzone is a venture capital fund with offices in London, Stockholm, New York, and Oslo. To date, it has raised eight funds with €1bn currently under management, and invested in some 130 technology-enabled companies, including category leaders such as Spotify, iZettle, Klarna, Avito, Trustpilot, Zopa, Seriously, Lastminute.com, Stepstone and more. For further information, visit us at https://northzone.com/