Connexity<\/a>, a lead-gen platform for online retailers, has acquired Skimlinks<\/a>, a U.K. platform for publishers to make money through affiliate links. Terms of the deal were undisclosed. According to Crunchbase<\/a>, Skimlinks had raised a total of $25.5 million and reached a late Series C stage of funding, the final round coming from Frog Capital, which invested<\/a> $16 million.<\/p>\n An early seed investor was Sussex Place Ventures <\/a> way back in 2009<\/a>. For context, San Francisco-based competitor VigLink, which has raised a total of $27.3 million, remains an independent company.<\/p>\n Sources in the VC industry indicate that the acquisition was a “decent one” that may even have hit three figures, with a possible a large-ish earnout and equity component. Certainly, this was not a “fire sale,” by any means.<\/p>\n Although coy on the price of the acquisition, co-founder and president Alicia Navarro <\/a> said: “Every party, including many staff, has made money out of this deal and is very happy.”<\/p>\n Co-founded in 2007 by Navarro and Joe Stepniewski, Skimlinks <\/a> rode the wave of online activity as publishers struggled to monetize their ballooning online operations in the mid-teens of the last decade. Affiliate programs allow publishers to get a cut of the revenue when their link drives a purchase on an e-commerce site. Skimlinks makes the process easier through automation.<\/p>\n Originally spinning out of an idea Navarro had about consumer online commerce habits — a startup called Skimbit that resembled Pinterest <\/a> in some respects — it had scaled to the U.S. by the time I interviewed<\/a> Navarro in 2012.<\/p>\n In 2013 it took on a growth financing round<\/a> led by Greycroft Partners.<\/p>\n A couple of years later the platform was driving<\/a> more than $500 million in e-commerce sales for publishers.<\/p>\n By 2016, editorial content from its publisher network of 1.5 million domains had driven<\/a> nearly $1 billion of e-commerce transactions and the company said it was on a path to profitability.<\/p>\n In 2018 Navarro stepped away<\/a> from the CEO position, taking on the role of president, and handed the reigns to Sebastien Blanc, previously chief revenue officer.<\/p>\n Speaking to TechCrunch, Navarro said the COVID-19 pandemic had accelerated the growth of the business as more publishers in its network monetized the massively increased online traffic, brought about by global lockdown policies.<\/p>\n Bill Glass, CEO of Connexity <\/a> said in a statement: “Our solutions help retailers acquire new customers and sales while enabling ecommerce-oriented publishers to monetize engaged shopping audiences. Combining the companies creates more scale on both sides of the marketplace.”<\/p>\n Sebastien Blanc, CEO of Skimlinks said: “By marrying Connexity’s CPC search budgets with the broad CPA affiliate monetization coverage of Skimlinks, we provide best-in-class monetization for publishers. Our combined scale will fortify Connexity as a critically important customer acquisition channel for retailers and will strengthen publisher monetization solutions.”<\/p>\n And what of the founders? Stepniewski has taken on a senior role with Facebook <\/a> UK. Navarro is now working on a fresh startup she bills as “Airbnb-meets-Calm as a service,” allowing founders or executives to unplug and get into what is known as “Deep Work.”<\/p>\n She is now in the process of early-stage fundraising, so her entrepreneurial journey is clearly going to continue.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
![\"Joe](\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/sklimlinks-image-by-dan-taylor-danheisenbergmedia-com-16.jpg?w=730&crop=1\")
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Contact Information:<\/b>
Mike Butcher<\/p>\n
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<\/a>, Wire<\/a>, United States<\/a>, English<\/a><\/p>\n
Contact Information:<\/h3>\n
Mike Butcher<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Connexity, a lead-gen platform for online retailers, has acquired Skimlinks, a U.K. platform for publishers to make money through affiliate links. Terms of the deal were undisclosed. According to Crunchbase, Skimlinks had raised a total of $25.5 million and reached a late Series C stage of funding, the final round coming from Frog Capital, which invested $16 million. An … Continue reading A 12-year journey ends as Skimlinks is acquired by retail marketing platform Connexity<\/span><\/a> Continue Reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,22,54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english","category-united-states","category-wire"],"yoast_head":"\nA 12-year journey ends as Skimlinks is acquired by retail marketing platform Connexity - Business<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/ipsnews.net\/business\/2020\/05\/29\/a-12-year-journey-ends-as-skimlinks-is-acquired-by-retail-marketing-platform-connexity\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A 12-year journey ends as Skimlinks is acquired by retail marketing platform Connexity - Business\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Connexity, a lead-gen platform for online retailers, has acquired Skimlinks, a U.K. platform for publishers to make money through affiliate links. Terms of the deal were undisclosed. According to Crunchbase, Skimlinks had raised a total of $25.5 million and reached a late Series C stage of funding, the final round coming from Frog Capital, which invested $16 million. 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