Zapnito raises £3.3million Series A funding from Octopus Ventures

Zapnito raises £3.3/$4.6million Series A funding from Octopus Ventures to meet growing demand for B2B online community platforms

London, UK: Zapnito, the online community SaaS platform, has completed its Series A funding round with Octopus Ventures, totalling £3.3 / $4.6 million. Based in London, with a team across Europe and the US, Zapnito is a community SaaS platform that allows brands to build customer participation by enabling them to learn, interact and co-create.

Zapnito’s offering, which combines knowledge-sharing with community interaction, has been crucial for businesses during the pandemic to help them stay connected to their customers and drive participation via virtual events, knowledge-sharing and peer-to-peer interaction. These expert communities capture the collective intelligence of its members by eliciting customer insight, engagement, and co-creation from customers, partners and prospects.

This funding will allow Zapnito to accelerate growth by helping more organisations deploy communities post-pandemic, which has accelerated expectations for a quality digital-first brand experience.

Zapnito will use the investment to further develop its market leading online community platform. Specifically it will build on its virtual events capabilities, analytics tools and suite of integrations. It will also use the investment to grow its core markets through an increase in sales, marketing and customer support as well as targeting growth in the US.

Zapnito’s customer base comprises knowledge-driven organisations including publishers and associations, as well as B2B SaaS companies who need to actively engage their customers to drive adoption, retention and growth. Customers include global publishers such as Springer Nature and Wiley, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and SaaS businesses like Sova Assessment.

Charles Thiede, CEO of Zapnito, said:

“From the beginning of Zapnito, we have focused on enabling brands to create trusted communities. Until now our growth has been bootstrapped through self-funding and Angel investment. In Octopus we have found the right partner to allow us to further grow the Zapnito platform for larger enterprises and expansion into new markets. We’re incredibly proud to join their investment portfolio, and look forward to working with them to advance our mission of expert communities and collective intelligence.”

Paul Davidson, Principal at Octopus Ventures, said:

“Community management is now a crucial part of how brands service their customers. It can also help showcase their identity among the most loyal subscribers and contributors. In Zapnito, Charles and Jon have developed a market-leading proposition that enables companies to embrace the power of communities by harnessing collective intelligence. This is a trend that we see gathering pace as brands seek to take greater control of their narrative. We are excited to be backing Zapnito and look forward to supporting its expansion into new markets with this funding round.”

Press Contacts
Octopus Ventures – Sam Ferris: [email protected] / 020 3142 4933
Zapnito – Nicola Fine: [email protected] / 07778588972

About Zapnito
Zapnito powers customer participation through branded, expert communities. The white-label platform allows brands to connect with their customers to share knowledge, interact and co-create, harnessing their collective intelligence. Founded in 2013, Zapnito powers the expert communities of leading brands including Springer Nature, Informa, The OECD and the Ellen McArthur Foundation.

About Octopus Ventures
At Octopus Ventures we invest in the people, the ideas and the industries that will help change the world. Our investment team is built to specialise in the five areas where we see the most potential for growth and innovation: health, fintech, deep tech, consumer and B2B software. Since 2008 we have backed the founding teams of more than 130 companies including Zoopla, Secret Escapes, graze.com, tails.com, Swiftkey, Elvie, Depop, Sofar Sounds, Big Health, Bought By Many, ByMiles, OLIO and Cazoo, City Pantry, Simply Cook and HAS Technology. With £1.7 billion under management and investing over £200m a year, Octopus Ventures is one of the largest and most active venture investors in Europe. We tend to invest from £1 million for Seed to £10 million for Series B and we can continue to fund the companies we back right through to IPO. We are based in London and New York with a network that spans from San Francisco to China. The companies we back become a part of this network, with access to a formidable resource of experience and expertise.

Our current investment focus:

Health: Transforming the health industry, from digital therapeutics through to biotechnology.
Fintech: Revolutionising society’s ability to exchange and allocate financial resources and risk.
Deep Tech: The tools and technologies that will power the next industrial revolution. These include quantum computing, robotics and drones, sensory human augmentation and 3D printing.
Consumer: Reinventing the everyday, in how we live, work, travel, play, rest and recuperate.
B2B Software: Investing in companies driving digitalisation and automation across traditional and nascent industries.