Gordons advises on series A investment deal for marketing technology platform, Contentcal

Yorkshire law firm Gordons has advised ContentCal on a deal which has seen the marketing technology platform secure $6.2 million in Series A investment from Fuel Ventures and Guinness Asset Management.

The investment will be used by ContentCal to drive growth of its content marketing and intelligence platform, enable new hires, develop a proprietary content intelligence platform and open a new US headquarters, as well as expanding its UK headquarters.

Corporate solicitor Amy Pierechod advised on the deal for Gordons, which secured follow-on funding from Fuel Ventures after initial investment in 2020 and new funding from Guinness Asset Management.

ContentCal’s mission is to become the leading content marketing suite for SMEs around the world. It does this by, firstly, bringing high end features and functionality that usually only large enterprises can afford to smaller organisations, democratising access to great marketing software; and secondly, by building a human product that users love and providing them an off-the-shelf buying experience usually seen in consumer businesses. It currently has over 2,000 customers around the world, and has grown by 400 per cent quarter on quarter from 2020 to 2021.

ContentCal will use the investment to hire over 40 people to join its team in the next year, doubling the current size of its workforce. It will also be opening new headquarters in Austin, Texas, as well as expanding its UK operations. The company expects to triple its revenues in the next 12 months.

The company is also developing a new product, ContentCal IQ, a proprietary content intelligence platform that will allow marketers to create smarter, better content faster.

Alex Packham, founder and CEO of ContentCal, said: “I’m delighted to secure this investment and grateful to Amy Pierechod who showed her expertise and technology sector experience in advising on the deal.

“We have seen unprecedented demand for our content marketing collaboration platform over the last 12 months. This investment puts the business in an incredible place to expand our team, invest further in product innovation and deliver on our mission to become the leading content marketing suite for SMEs globally.”

Amy Pierechod, solicitor at Gordons, said: “This is a significant investment for ContentCal which will enable the business to realise its ambitious growth plans. At Gordons we pride ourselves on offering straight-talking and effective legal advice to businesses when embarking on their investment journey and I’m pleased to have been able to support ContentCal on this deal.”

With offices in Leeds and Bradford, Gordons offers a team of specialist tech lawyers working with technology clients including gaming platform SkyBet, online grocery retailer Ocado, global sports website and app provider Pitchero and logistics business Advanced Supply Chain. It is also a corporate partner of NorthInvest, which sees the firm work closely with NorthInvest’s senior management team to identify, connect and develop early-stage tech start-ups throughout the North of England.

Shane Galleway, head of investment at Guinness Asset Management, added: “Guinness are delighted to be investors in ContentCal, and are excited to be supporting Alex and the team as they expand their footprint in the US and enhance data analytics with the development of ContentCal IQ.”

Mark Pearson, Founder of Fuel Ventures, said: “ContentCal has gone from strength to strength since we first invested last year and we are excited to be backing the business again in their Series A. Content marketing continues to be a major driver of growth for companies across the world and ContentCal is in a strong position to become the major player in the market with this investment.”

ContentCal was launched in 2014 when Packham saw a gap in the market to significantly improve the social media content creation and publishing processes for businesses who didn’t have or couldn’t afford the expertise in-house, through software and automation.

ContentCal’s products allow businesses to centralise and automate content ideation, creation, publishing and reporting across their social channels, blogs, internal communications and advertising platforms, while integrating with 1,500 other business applications, helping them to balance the requirement to publish more content than ever before with the need for quality content creation.

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