Janrain, which provides a social log-in management platform for developers that allows for easy signup through Facebook and other social media services, has raised $33 million. The round included contributions from new investors including salesforce.com, Millennium Technology Value Partners, Split Rock Partners, and Epic Ventures, as well as existing investors Emergence Capital, RPM Ventures, DFJ Frontier and Anthem Venture Partners.
As part of the funding, Millennium’s Dan Borok is joining Janrain’s Board of Directors.
“Janrain has a proven ability to help companies leverage social media to better acquire, engage and understand their customers,” Borok said. “It also has the technology, partners and customers to revolutionize the online user experience. Millennium is excited about all that Janrain offers today as well as the team’s vision for the future.”
The company is a leading developer in OpenID, an open, federated identity technology. Its plug and play technology enables users to sign into an app with existing Facebook, Twitter and other social media accounts, as well as publish comments, activities and followings from the app on those social networks.
More than 365,000 sites use the company’s technology for easier signup, including Dr. Pepper, Samsung, Fox Networks and Mattel. The company maintains that 77 percent of people prefer social signups, and such signups can help improve conversions by 50 percent.
“Janrain not only helps us acquire more customers, it also makes us better marketers,” said Robert Stone, Director of Interactive & Emerging Media, Dr Pepper Snapple Group. “The company has mastered the true value of social login, providing the central platform to capture, integrate and leverage social profile data to better understand and engage in meaningful 1:1 interactions with our online customers.”
In addition to providing users an easy way to signup, Janrain also provides those companies valuable data regarding usage in order to gain a better understanding of customers.
The company will use the new funding to fuel its revenue, customer and user profile growth. Its revenues more than doubled last year. The company stores 3x the user profiles per month than what it did at the beginning of the year.
“It’s a very exciting time for Janrain, our investors and customers as we enter the next phase of social login and user management,” said Larry Drebes, CEO of Janrain. “I cannot imagine another company other than Janrain with the pieces in place to forge ahead. This funding will help us accelerate the execution of our strategy to transform the ways that companies interact with their online consumers.”