Trustpilot raises $10m in funding round

Trustpilot, (Copenhagen, Denmark) a leading provider of trusted company reviews, has closed a € 10 million funding round led by Index Ventures, joined by existing investors SEED Capital Denmark and Northzone.

Launched in Denmark in 2007, the service has seen rapid adoption with already more than 6 million reviews of over 100,000 individual merchants. The company has developed strong positions in UK, France, Germany, Netherlands, Italy and is now entering the US.

Peter Mühlmann, CEO, Trustpilot

Peter Mühlmann, CEO of Trustpilot who founded the business in 2007, said: “We want to create the best, most trustworthy web site for consumers to share their online shopping experiences and make it the global standard in customer reviews. We’re thrilled to have such a strong group of investors support that mission and this funding provides us with the opportunity to achieve our goal even faster.”

Trustpilot today employs a team of 100 in its Copenhagen headquarters. The first investor was SEED Capital Denmark who funded the company the first 2 years and helped develop the business platform. To date the Company has raised €5 million, most recently having closed its A round in September 2011 with Northzone and SEED Capital Denmark.

Today Trustpilot enables two ways to source reviews: through review invitations that are sent directly to online consumers by Trustpilot, and through end user contributions on the Trustpilot portal. The benefit for businesses using Trustpilot is that they can backtrack each customer review to the transaction on which the review is based. This helps businesses pinpoint where and how to improve customer satisfaction. According to the Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey, online reviews are considered one of the most trusted and relevant form of advertising. Trustpilot studies show that displaying reviews may increase conversion rates by more than 20%.

Ben Holmes, partner at Index Ventures said, “The Trustpilot concept is a brilliant one which creates substantial value both for merchants who wish to highlight their service credentials and for consumers who want to identify trustworthy service providers in an increasingly crowded online world. The Company has executed the vision excellently and established a strong position in multiple geographies. We are delighted to be joining that Company as an investor and look forward to help them grow the Global leader in this category.”

Index Ventures has over the years made a significant commitment in investing in the Scandinavian market, with investments in iZettle, Rebtel, Milestone Systems and Skype. This time Index joins leading Nordic tech investor, Northzone, and Seed Capital, who have been supporting Trustpilot from very early on.

“Trustpilot continuously shows strong results in terms of both growth, revenue, consumer traffic and the building and maintenance of trust. The team’s ability to drill down to what is really important to its users, and focus on just that, is second to none. We are very happy to continue supporting Trustpilot and look forward to expanding the Company’s potential over time.” Added Gregers Kronborg, General Partner at Northzone.

“Our ambition is clear. We will be the most powerful global player in the market for reviews of online shopping, and to do that we need the strongest team. We already have a highly skilled group of employees and we will continue to strengthen the organization to meet our ambitions of global leadership” added Lars Andersen, General Partner at SEED Capital.

About Trustpilot
Trustpilot is the largest and fastest growing community for shared online shopping experiences. Founded in 2007, Trustpilot has established web sites in more than 18 countries including USA, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, the Nordics and Netherlands. With more than 6,000,000 reviews covering in excess of 100,000 merchants available, Trustpilot has become the leading source of trusted merchant reviews.

About Index Ventures
Index Ventures is a leading global venture capital firm active in technology and biotechnology investing since 1996. From its offices in Geneva, London and San Francisco, Index Ventures loves to discover and support the most entrepreneurial teams wherever they are looking to build market defining global businesses. For more information on its investments, from seed through to growth stage, please visit www.indexventures.com.

About Northzone
Northzone is a technology investment fund with over 80 companies in its portfolio. Founded in 1996, the partnership has expanded to dominate the north European investment market, with a range of notable investments including Spotify, Nimsoft, Napatech, Pricerunner, StepStone, and Lastminute. Northzone’s aim is to support businesses that truly make a difference. With over 110 years of collective investment experience, Northzone’s team is one of the most experienced in Europe.

About SEED Capital
SEED Capital is the largest early stage venture fund in Denmark. Seed Capital invests in companies within IT, Cleantech and Life Science at the seed or even pre‐seed stage from Denmark and southern Sweden. Depending on capital need, SEED Capital can invest up to € 9 million – preferably in syndication with international investors. We take an active advisory role as an investor.

Source: TrustPilot