Customer intelligence startup Local Measure raises $4.5 million to expand across the US and Middle East

Sydney customer intelligence platform Local Measure has raised $4.5 million in funding from private investors and family offices to help expand across the US and the Middle East with new offices in Los Angeles and Dubai.

Bringing the total raised by Local Measure to date to $15 million, founder and CEO Jonathan Barouch said the funding comes after a busy year for the startup.

While providing solutions for a variety of businesses and locations, from hotels to shopping centres and educational and cultural venues, the startup has over the last year narrowed its focus on the tourism and hospitality industry; it won the Emerging Innovator Award at the global Travel Innovation Summit in November.

Local Measure’s technology looks to help clients discover what guests and visitors are saying about their venue and service on social media in real time to help them improve the guest’s experience and detect and solve any problems before they grow.

“We had 150 percent revenue growth year-on-year in the hotel vertical, and we have some of the biggest theme parks and tourism assets in the world with us, which is really nice because we’ve focused in on an area we’re good at, and we’re becoming experts,” Barouch said.

The startup reports that its solution is being used by businesses in more than 380 cities around the world, with the likes of Qantas, AccorHotels, and Club Med among its clients.

Expecting to grow its US clientele to over 1,000 hotels by the end of the year, the startup will be opening an office in LA before the end of this quarter to help its existing Miami base in facilitating this growth, while a Dubai office is set to open over the coming weeks. The startup also has offices in Singapore and London.

According to Barouch, 60 percent of Local Measure’s revenue currently comes from outside Australia; he expects this to grow to at least 90 percent by the end of the year.

In seeking funding to pursue this growth, Barouch said the startup went to its existing investor base; to date Local Measure has no venture capital backing.

“When we started the company about five a half years ago, there weren’t really many VCs in Australia that would invest in global SaaS B2B businesses. That’s obviously changed over the last few years, but we’re in the fortunate position where we’re growing, revenue is growing, and we’ve got a world-class board and advisors,” he said.

“We have spoken to a few VCs since but the kind of terms they want aren’t really compatible with the shareholder base and the structure we’ve currently got.”

Image: Local Measure team. Source: Supplied.