Pursway Raises $7.2M To Help Marketers Find Social Influencers

Influencer marketing company Pursway is announcing that it has raised $7.2 million in Series B funding.

Pursway says that it takes a unique approach to helping businesses reach the people most likely to drive sales — an approach it describes as “socializing data.” The company has built a database (pulled from online sources like alumni lists, event attendees, and employment history) mapping the social relationships of more than 100 million US consumers.

By overlaying its data on each business’ customer and sales database, it can supposedly “reveal who is a friend of whom and identify purchase influence.” The business can then target its marketing efforts at the people who, thanks to their online influence, are most likely to convince others to buy the marketer’s products.

“For us, influence is about one person having purchase influence over others, i.e. making others actually spend money, not about how many social media friends and followers they have,” a company spokesperson told me.

Sony Card Marketing & Services Company (part of the larger Sony Corporation of America) has seen a 300 percent increase in results and conversions in its prospecting campaigns, according to senior vice president Steven Fuld (who’s quoted in the funding press release).

To build Pursway’s technology, the company says CTO and founder Guy Gildor drew on his seven years of experience developing data mining software for the Israeli military.

The new funding comes from Battery Ventures and Globespan Capital Partners, who both previously invested. (Pursway raised a $6 million Series A.) Pursway told me there were other investors interested in the deal, “but we chose to keep things simple and stay focused on operational execution.”