SaaS Social Marketing Automation Leader Genius.com Raises $7M from Accel Partners, Emergence Capital, MDV, and Walden International

SaaS Social Marketing Automation Leader Genius.com Raises $7M from Top Tier Investors to Drive Faster Growth

Genius.com Incorporated, a leading on-demand provider of B2B marketing automation, sales lead management, and email marketing solutions for sales and marketing professionals, announced today a $7M growth round of financing led by new investor Deep Fork Capital. All of the company’s existing investors participated in the round, demonstrating their deep commitment to Genius' long-term success, the company's social marketing automation leadership and the overall market opportunity. The funds will be used to expand Genius’ sales and product development efforts with a clear sight to profitability.

"Our business has been on a steep upswing with record revenue and customer growth over the past 4 quarters despite the harshest economic environment in memory," observed David Thompson. "This round of financing will help us grow even faster and compete more aggressively, extending our leadership position in the marketing automation space into the enterprise and beyond. The fact that all of our existing investors participated in the round as well as our new lead investor Deep Fork Capital underscores our success to date and validates the huge opportunity for Genius.com.”

Genius.com is the first SaaS solution that delivers the benefits of social marketing automation to both Marketing and Sales, making it easier and more efficient for Sales and Marketing to reach, respond and build relationships "in the cloud" and ultimately recognize revenue.

"We were very impressed by the quality of the Genius business, their team, and the massive market opportunity for what is the best positioned company in the SaaS marketing automation space," noted Andre de Baubigny, Managing Partner of Deep Fork Capital. “With top tier investors like Accel, MDV, Walden and Emergence, Genius has an exceptional syndicate of investors, making them far and above the most promising long-term player in a very hot category." Other recent Deep Fork investments include Trulia, a real estate search company, and Amie Street, a digital music retailer.

“MDV continues to see huge upside in Genius.com as they carry their impressive run into 2010 and beyond,” said Nancy Schoendorf, General Partner, MDV. “With the addition of over 120 customers in less than 8 months, including such notable companies as Hoover’s, Information Builders and Intuit, Genius has quickly become the marketing automation leader supplanting companies that can’t offer marketers the same quick time to value.”

About Accel Partners
Founded in 1983, Accel Partners has a long history of excellence and innovation in venture capital, and is dedicated to partnering with outstanding entrepreneurs and management teams to build world-class businesses. Accel today invests globally, with offices in Palo Alto, California, London, UK, and Bangalore, India as well as in China via the IDG-Accel Partnership. With over $6 billion under management, Accel has helped entrepreneurs build over 300 successful companies, many of which have defined their categories, including Admob, Alfresco, BBN, Brightcove, ComScore, Etsy, Facebook, GlamMedia, Imperva, Infinera, Interwoven, JBoss, Kayak, Macromedia , metroPCS, Playfish, Polycom/PictureTel, QlikTech, Real Networks, Riverbed, Springsource, UUNet, Veritas, Walmart.com, and XenSource. For more information on Accel, visit: http://www.facebook.com/accel.

About Emergence Capital Partners
Emergence Capital Partners is a leading venture capital firm focused on early and growth-stage Technology-Enabled Services investing. The firm's mission is to help build market leading, successful businesses in partnership with great entrepreneurs. Emergence partners have funded and helped build over 25 On-Demand companies, including Salesforce.com, SuccessFactors and Lithium -- more than any other early-stage venture firm. Having assessed thousands of companies in the TES sector, Emergence Capital has developed significant expertise and resources focused on the critical factors of success in the market. For further information, visit www.emcap.com or call 650 573-3100.

About Deep Fork Capital
Deep Fork Capital (DFC) is a leading balanced-stage venture capital fund focused on providing equity capital and convertible debt financing to companies in the consumer technology, digital media and cleantech spaces, DFC principally works closely with the world’s most formidable early stage venture firms and highly effective strategic corporate investors. Current DFC portfolio companies have included Amie Street, Dash Navigation [acquired by Research in Motion], Genius.com, SearchMe, Reach Media Group, Moblyng, Trulia, weplay and Digital Artists Entertainment.

About MDV—Mohr Davidow Ventures
MDV—Mohr Davidow Ventures is a leading early stage venture capital firm investing in entrepreneurs building companies in the areas of cleantech, information technology, and life sciences. The firm has built a reputation among entrepreneurs as a partner by taking a hands-on approach to investments and working skillfully to architect and build successful companies. The team brings years of real-world experience to accelerate each company's time to market and optimize its long-term success. Category-leading companies funded by MDV include Agile, Audience Science,Broadbase (KANA), Brocade, Epigram (BRCM), FormFactor, Ipsilon Networks (NOK), Kalpana (CSCO), Nanosolar, ONI Systems (CIEN), Peppers and Rogers Group (Carlson Marketing), Requisite Technology (CKCM), and Shutterfly. Founded in 1983, MDV has $2 billion under management. For more information, please visit www.mdv.com.

About Walden International
Walden International ("WI") is a leading international venture capital firm that has been providing investors access to early-stage, cross-border, IT opportunities with the advantage of an unrivaled Pan Asia network since 1987. The firm's funds total over US$1.5 billion in committed capital. WI's network of multi-cultural professionals spans China/ Hong Kong, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan and the United States. With over 100 years of combined experience, WI's investment team has funded leading technology companies including Creative Technology and Leadis Technology, SINA, and SMIC. With six offices throughout Asia and the United States, the firm has extensive network relationships with major institutions, Asia governmental entities, strategic investors, and entrepreneurs throughout the Pan Asia region. For information, please visit www.waldenintl.com.

About Genius.com
Genius.com is the leading provider of sales lead management and demand generation solutions that enable both marketing and sales users to quickly identify and connect with their best prospects, without IT. Genius.com is a Sales 2.0 leader with over 500 corporate customers who use Genius solutions to automate email marketing and lead nurturing campaigns that deliver the most qualified leads directly to their frontline sales reps, so they can immediately follow-up on their best opportunities.

Genius.com is a privately held company funded by Accel Partners, Mohr Davidow Ventures, Emergence Capital, and Walden International, with headquarters in San Mateo, CA. For more information, visit www.genius.com or email Info at Genius.