LISNR Closes $3.5 Million in Oversubscribed, Series A Funding

CINCINNATI - July 7, 2014 - PRLog -- LISNR, the mobile audience engagement technology platform, today announced that it has completed its Series A funding round. Led by Cambridge-based Progress Ventures, the participating VC’s include Progress Ventures, Mercury, Jump Capital, CincyTech and Serra Ventures. The company has previously raised $850K in a seed round from CincyTech and notable angels such as Tim Schigel, Co-Chairman of Palo Alto based ShareThis.  LISNR will use these funds to further product development and significant expansion of its engineering and leadership teams. As part of the funding, Nick MacShane, venture partner at Progress Ventures, joins the board of directors.

“Built in Cincinnati, LISNR has very intelligently leveraged the advantages the city offers start-ups. Low business taxes, a tremendous talent pool, and a supportive network of Fortune 500 companies have enabled LISNR to gain tremendous momentum and a stellar client list from day one.” Says Nick MacShane, Partner at Progress Ventures. “They have done a commendable job architecting an audio-enabled mobile content platform that solves core challenges for many brands. This round of funding enables them to take the technology and people in the company to the next level.  We’re bullish on the story we are helping them build.”

Founded by an executive from Procter & Gamble, Rodney Williams created LISNR at the annual Start-up Bus competition in 2012. LISNR has since grown the initial concept into a compelling mobile audience engagement platform, powered by a series of patent pending engagement products.  At the core of their products is an intelligent ultrasonic smart tone with an unlimited amount of triggered marketing potential. LISNR enables brands like RocNation and AT&T to significantly enhance their customer experience by powering applications to deliver triggered, relevant and personalized content. LISNR backgrounds detecting such triggers and then delivers content or experiential interaction accordingly. The magic for their clients is how this activity is used to monetize their content by showing broadband-based ads prior to delivery through LISNR.

“Our mission is to deliver tailored, relevant, meaningful 2^nd screen content everywhere.  Our platform is one of the few technologies that can effectively link the live environment with the media environment better than ever before,” said Rodney Williams, CEO of LISNR “We’ve created a unique platform that delivers on this mission. With it, we create connections between brands, content and consumers that’s very compelling. We’re investing in this platform and the people who can take it to the next level.”

With the close of the funding, LISNR has already added two proven and accomplished executives to it’s roster; Jason Ruebel, a 18+ year agency veteran, as VP of Operations/Strategy and Kevin Gerl, technology veteran, as Director of Engineering. Additional key hires are in the works.

As LISNR expands, they continue a steady stream of new client launches and stellar results.  Across all pilots and executions, LISNR has maintained a +30% triggered delivery engagement rate of total smartphone audience base.  Additionally, +80% of content delivered has received brand support and successfully monetized positioning LISNR as one of the best new content monetization engines.

LISNR was recently named as a finalist in the TiE50 awards.

About LISNR:

LISNR is the premiere audio-based mobile audience engagement technology platform for brands worldwide. LISNR delivers triggered, relevant and personalized content via a series of products.  At the core of their products is an intelligent ultrasonic smart tone with an unlimited amount of triggered marketing potential. Launched in 2012 by ex-P&G executive Rodney Williams, LISNR has formed a strategic alliance with RocNation, and boasts an impressive client roster including, Mondelez, Budweiser and AT&T.