New Facebook Advocate Platform Crowdly Announces Funding

Crowdly, a new advocate management platform that helps big brands find, rank and connect with their passionate advocates on Facebook

, today announced that the company has closed more than $1.2 million in seed funding with significant involvement from Launchpad Venture Group. Additional investors include New York Angels and Laconia Ventures, both based in New York City, along with support from a number of individual strategic investors. The funding will be used to expand Crowdly's product, sales and marketing efforts. "We saw an opportunity with Crowdly that we could not ignore -- the platform has the power to transform and reignite brand engagement on Facebook," said Peter Clay of Launchpad, and former Global Marketing VP at P&G. "With Crowdly, brands can find their top fans and tap into their authentic passion, support and loyalty to create a more exciting community for everyone." Brands and their agencies can use Crowdly to easily discover, engage, and motivate the "Superfans" hidden within their Facebook brand communities. The innovative advocate management platform offers unique value to brands via: Actionable Community Insights: Crowdly identifies and prioritizes advocates on Facebook based on their meaningful interactions with the brand. Unlike platforms that look to attribute influence or brand relevance broadly, Crowdly is able to directly measure advocacy within a brand's Facebook community, based on a fan's lifetime influence and history with that brand. Superfan Activation: The platform allows brands to directly engage with their top fans, offer targeted content and relevant interactions such as private conversations and exclusive offers, to continuously motivate them into action, while letting fans create an identity and status within the Facebook brand community. "There are number of tools in the influencer and advocate marketing space, but only Crowdly measures beyond the chatter -- the platform captures response, reactions and actions of fans over time to empower brands to find and engage their most passionate supporters on Facebook," said Jeffrey Silverman of Laconia Ventures and member of the New York Angels. "To date, brands have not been fully empowered to know the people in their Facebook community on an individual level. To really make social communities like Facebook valuable for both the brand and the fan, brands need solutions that humanize their fan base, and offer opportunities for authentic advocacy," added Dan Sullivan, founder and CEO of Crowdly. "We are thrilled to have the support and recognition for Crowdly by our investors and customers as a much-needed technology for the inevitable evolution towards more authentic and rewarding brand communities." Facebook® is a registered trademark of Facebook Inc. About Crowdly Crowdly is the leading social advocate management platform for Facebook that allows brands to find and rank their top advocates, more effectively engage them, and motivate them into action. Through its patent-pending technology, Crowdly is the only platform that shows brands the lifetime influence of their top fans and a complete history of fans' interactions over time. The company is privately held and investors include Launchpad Venture Group, New York Angels and Laconia Ventures. Crowdly is a TechStars Boston alum based in Boston, MA. For more information on the company, please visit www.crowdly.com.