Sydney martech startup Mutinex has raised $17.5 million in a deal that’s nearly doubled the marketing spend analytics platform’s valuation in 12 months.
The round was led by new backer Marbruck Investments, with support from EVP and Archangel Ventures, and ups Mutinex’s valuation to $132.5 million from $75 million 12 months ago when EVP led a $9.5 million raise.
Founded in 2018 as Mutiny by Matt Farrugia and Henry Innis, the SaaS analytics platform also raised $5m in a Seed extension in February 2023 and $2.4m in June 2022 from ad industry heavyweights including Andrew Baxter, Nick Garrett, John Sintras, Russel Howcroft and Chris Savage, as well as Yaniv Bernstein,.
The fresh funds are for Mutinex’s US expansion, driven by Innis, and follows news that Farrugia, who has a young family, is stepping away from day-to-day operations and his global role as chief customer officer to focus on the Asia-Pacific region as his cofounder makes the trek across the Pacific to support US-based John Sintras as they expand in the US.
Earlier this year the startup added to its C-suite with Mat Baxter signing on as Asia-Pacific CEO, with Innis as global CEO position, and Danny Bass as chief revenue officer.
Innis, who focuses on the product side of Mutinex, said it had been a “really challenging market” for raising capital.
“They’re hard and require discipline and metrics of value,” he said.
“It’s very, very important to keep focused on executing in a really disciplined way”
The Sydney startup delivers marketing investment analytics via a subscription model and allows users to analyse and optimise at close to real-time how well marketing expenditure has performed, by media channel and even program, giving clear insights in return on investment. That means marketers can better predict and price future marketing expenditure and returns. Mutinex’s customer base has included Samsung Australia, Asahi Oceania, and ING with many others.
Innis was full of praise for long-term backer EVP for the impact they’ve had on the business beyond capital.
“EVP has been one of the most steadfast and brilliant partners. We couldn’t have asked more from Justin [Lipman] and Alan [Zhu] in terms of connections and support,” he said.
“I don’t think I could have predicted the value-add from venture and the company wouldn’t have been as successful as it is without EVP.”
EVP partner Justin Lipman is equally enthused about the potential for Mutinex, which the VC’s gone all-in on.
“The company has exceptional retention rates with almost every customer we speak to providing glowing reports. It is clear the product is delivering significant ROI across its customer base making adoption across the market straightforward,” he said.
Pleasingly, the same customer dynamics are playing out in the US where the company has already made significant inroads. Mutinex is far and away the largest investment in EVP’s history at c. $19m invested over the last two years.
“Indeed, this is the fourth time we have allocated to the company over the journey. Mutinex continues to emerge as one of Australia’s most promising technology businesses and we are proud to be ongoing partners to the business.”
Trending
Daily startup news and insights, delivered to your inbox.