Hearsay Social Raises $30M for Bank-Focused Social Media App

The social media management software company Hearsay Social is having a good year. It announced Thursday that it has doubled its customer base and just got $30 million in Series C funds from existing investors Sequoia Capital and NEA.

"Large Fortune 100 companies are taking their social selling programs from optional to recommended to mandatory," says CEO Clara Shih, who spoke with Bank Technology News late last night.

The new clients include Bank of the West and two Canadian banks.

The software helps banks manage social media activity and comply with rules from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council. In financial institutions, interest in the software tends to start with investment advisors, who are most likely to communicate with clients over Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

But now other groups that have relationship managers, such as retail bankers, small-business bankers, and mortgage loan officers, are starting to use the product, Shih says. The company is also growing internationally, with its new Canadian customers and a new office in London. And social media is migrating from use by a small subset of tech-savvy or forward-thinking users to the rank and file, Shih says. "It's going from a side project to the new operating model."

"It used to be the case that compliance would own the social media project, or the head of digital," Shih says. "Now we're seeing executive sponsorship come from the C-suite."

For reprint and licensing requests for this article, click here.
Bank technology
MORE FROM AMERICAN BANKER