Taoiseach Enda Kenny, Cleverbug.com founder and CEO Kealan Lennon and Maurice Roche, partner, Delta Partners, and chairman of the Irish Venture Capital Association
Online direct marketing company Cleverbug.com has raised US$2.5m in venture funding from Delta Partners, its founder and angel investors.
Cleverbug.com provides an online marketing service for small businesses. It offers a range of free customisable design templates such as logos, business cards and flyers, printed and delivered to the customer’s door. In addition, it is developing a range of complimentary digital products for smaller business owners, such as websites, email marketing and social media tools.
Delta Partners invested US$1.8m from its Delta Equity Fund III Limited Partnership, with the remainder of the funds provided by Cleverbug.com founder and CEO Kealan Lennon, and other angel investors.
Maurice Roche, chairman of the Irish Venture Capital Association and general partner at Delta has joined Cleverbug.com as a non-executive director.
Cleverbug.com has an experienced management team. Lennon has extensive experience in the design, print, publishing and media sectors. Chief operating officer Mark Brophy was a former retail director with Hotels.com, a subsidiary of Expedia, and has extensive experience in building companies in the e-commerce space.
Cleverbug targets US$30bn opportunity
“There are more than 50m small businesses in North America and Europe that have a potential need for Cleverbug.com services,” Lennon explained.
“Our estimate is that this represents a market size of approximately $30bn. We have big global ambitions for Cleverbug.com and securing this initial funding allows us to launch our service in 2012. Our plan is to create 50 new jobs, as we further develop our technology, marketing, product development, customer care and user experience teams, with world-class talent, and I am delighted to be establishing our international headquarters here in Dublin, Ireland.”
Taoiseach Enda Kenny, TD, attended the funding announcement.
“The Government wants to develop Ireland as a ‘digital island’ and the presence of internet companies, like Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Zynga and Twitter, setting up international headquarters in Dublin, is a significant vote of confidence in our country. It is really positive to see e-commerce companies like Cleverbug.com establish and create jobs here and I particularly welcome such an innovative service, which is focused on helping small businesses.”
