The company will use the investment to scale growth into new categories and rebrand as PeerSpot on its journey to grow the most trusted marketplace for enterprise technology
IT Central Station, the world’s fastest growing enterprise technology review platform, announced that it closed a $30 million Series A funding round led by Invictus Growth Partners (“Invictus”). Over the past year, IT Central Station enabled 97 of the Fortune 100 to research technology buying decisions, grew ARR by over 120%, surpassed 500,000 registered members, and was visited by 3.5 million enterprise software buyers in the $4 trillion annual market for enterprise IT spending. This funding will be used to rebrand as PeerSpot, expand into new enterprise technology categories, and accelerate sales and marketing. Invictus Co-Founders and Managing Partners, John DeLoche and William Nettles, will join the Board of Directors.
IT Central Station raises $30 million from Invictus Growth Partners to accelerate its growth as the most trusted B2B software marketplace
Russell Rothstein, Founder and CEO of IT Central Station, said:
“IT Central Station has succeeded in building a platform that tech buyers trust and enables vendor marketers to achieve strong ROI. We are in the top of the first inning in our plan to build the world’s largest B2B marketplace for enterprise technology, built upon a foundation of verified user-generated content and peer reviews. The Invictus team adds deep operating expertise, including a uniquely valuable approach to data science, and I am thrilled to have Invictus as our partner for the next stage of our growth.”
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Since its launch in 2012, IT Central Station bootstrapped its growth, focused on product/market fit, and built a strong global customer base before raising this first institutional growth capital round. As a result of this focus, IT Central Station now offers the highest quality reviews in B2B technology segments such as cybersecurity, DevOps, and IT management. The company will use the investment proceeds to replicate this model into additional enterprise technology categories, leveraging its unique formula for generating in-depth reviews, high-performing leads, and actionable buyer intent data. As part of this growth, the company will rebrand in January 2022 as PeerSpot and invest significantly in the PeerSpot brand.
John DeLoche, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Invictus, said:
“IT Central Station’s peer review platform is a critical resource for buying enterprise software, and, according to our dialogues with their rapidly growing customer base, their reviews are the most thorough and trusted among enterprise buyers. Russell has built the leading marketplace for enterprise technology, while achieving strong growth and profitability. We are honored to partner with IT Central Station, soon to be PeerSpot, and look forward to working with Russell and his leadership team to achieve their mission.”
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William Nettles, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Invictus, said:
“Making the right enterprise software purchasing decisions has never been more mission critical for the success of growing businesses and the careers of enterprise software buyers. IT Central Station’s reviews have proven to be a must have for enterprises to validate the performance of their products, while providing buyers the most trusted and reliable data for their buying decisions. We are thrilled to partner with Russell and his team to help them scale the business to the benefit of enterprise software buyers globally.”
The need for trustworthy peer recommendations in the buying process continues to climb in the $4 trillion market for enterprise technology. Changes in buying behavior due to COVID-19 have accelerated the trend of technology buying towards reliance on online resources and peer reviews. IT Central Station’s research shows that 93% of B2B buyers rely on reviews and analysis to drive their major purchasing decisions, and more and more of them are turning to IT Central Station as the unbiased source of truth for enterprise software reviews.
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