Online retail review community Trustpilot has raised $73.5m in a Series D funding round led by Vitruvian Partners, the parties have announced.
The figure represents one of the highest totals raised in Danish history. It comes after a hugely successful 2014 for Trustpilot – with revenue growing by 80% in the 12 month period.
The online platform has now received 13 million reviews of 100,000 brands – averaging one review every five seconds. The high usage has attracted several backers – with total investment now standing at $118 million.
Previous investors, including DFJ Esprit, Index Ventures, Northzone and Seed Capital Denmark, joined Vitruvian in the most recent funding round.
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Vitruvian Partners is an independent private equity firm that specialises in middle market buyouts, growth buyouts and growth capital investments in the United Kingdom and Northern Europe.
It focuses on investing in ‘dynamic situations’ in industries characterised by growth and change, such as business services, technology/internet, media, telecoms, financial services, healthcare and consumer services.
In December 2013, Vitruvian announced that it had closed the fundraising of its second fund, Vitruvian Investment Partnership II (“VIP II”), at its self-imposed cap of $1.6 billion.
Partner Ben Johnson said the Trustpilot investment was attractive as “consumers increasingly recognise that peer-to-peer reviews have become an essential resource”.
“There is a huge global market opportunity for online reviews based on the desire of customers around the world to find trusted recommendations in every category,” he continued.
“Trustpilot is a technology leader and pioneer in this area, and its opportunity is to reach customers in new markets and to continue extending the benefits of online reviews to new global brands.”
Trustpilot founder and CEO Peter Holten Mühlmann put the company’s popularity down to the fact that “a brand is no longer just defined by the company, it’s defined by what customers are saying about that company”.
“This is a global trend that businesses cannot ignore,” he said.
Further reading: Index Ventures leads seven-figure growth capital deal for review service Trustpilot
