By Dawn Chmielewski
(Reuters) – The link-organizing service Linktree said Wednesday it has closed a $110 million funding round, led by Index Ventures and Coatue, which values the company at $1.3 billion.
The Melbourne-based company also said it hired Mike Colson, an executive who most recently serving as senior vice president of growth initiatives at Twitch, as its first president. He will focus on expansion in the United States.
Co-founder and Chief Executive Alex Zaccaria said he and his brother, Anthony, founded the company based on insights gleaned while working as digital strategists for bands. They found that while musicians had multiple sources of revenue — music streaming, merchandise and concert tours — social media sites restrict the number of links the artist can use to promote their work.
Linktree was launched to address this problem, Zaccaria said. Artists such as Selena Gomez use a single Linktree link in their social media bios to bring fans to a site where they can shop for merchandise, donate to her charitable organization supporting mental health, check out her Hulu series, “Only Murders in the Building” or find her music on Spotify, YouTube or Apple Music.
Zaccaria said the service, founded in 2016, has expanded well beyond its music roots. It now boasts 24 million users, from global brands such as Red Bull and Comedy Central to artists and personalities like Shawn Mendes and Dwayne Johnson.
The basic service is free, though users can pay up to $24 a month for more sophisticated features, such as the ability to collect email addresses and phone numbers or allow visitors to make purchases from their Linktree site.
Prior to the latest founding round, Linktree had raised $55.7 million in financing. The latest infusion of capital will help the company build more features and find new ways for creators to engage audiences online.
(Reporting by Dawn Chmielewski in Los Angeles; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
