Proof Raises More Than $2 Million to Deliver Business Impact Analytics

A Commpro News Update

Today it was announced that the first company to accurately compute the time-to-impact and business value of marketing and communications, Proof had been able to raise over $2 million in seed funding from corporate, agency and angel investors. The majority of the amount is a direct investment, while there is a portion that is a convertible loan.

Proof was built through collaborations with an array of Fortune 1000 leaders and marketing pros to address the endless struggle to connect marketing activities to business results. Proof is able to accurately compute attribution and the actual business impact of marketing and communications, including time lag, cause and effect, and the ripple effect of myriad activities over extended periods of time. 

Proof founders Mark Stouse and Kyle Brantley worked to develop a logic framework and a system that would build a reliable picture of the business value of marketing.  In over a decade of working together, they were able to build a highly accurate system that ultimately became the software known as Proof.  Tom Bishop, CTO and co-founder of successful fin-tech start-up Honest Dollar, joined Proof in mid-2016 to help transform a very successful system to a powerful SaaS tool.

“What Proof is doing today goes even further to complete the ‘last mile’ of marketing’s business value journey,” said Michelle Calcagni, who led marketing and communications for Honeywell Aerospace in Europe, Middle East, Africa and India and is now co-founder of PhoneBox, a global B2B communications firm.  “The attribution system that Mark Stouse brought to Honeywell was transformative, particularly given the typical aerospace conversion time and portfolio complexity. The ability to run ‘cause and effect’ analysis across a long customer decision process changes how you think about and invest in different parts of marketing and communications. A much-refined and automated version of that system is the basis of Proof today, and we are eager to bring its power to our clients.”

Proof executives worked with an array of marketing agencies, software industry executives, product developers, industry influencers and family offices in order to secure their funding. 

“We have spent the last decade building the logic frameworks and technology to take Proof from an early, mostly manual, system to the sophisticated, ground-breaking software platform available today,” said Stouse. “Many of the business and marketing leaders we have worked with in the past, as well as many current members of the Proof team, made financial investments in Proof.  They had seen earlier versions of the attribution system, and they knew we were on to something important. Funding our efforts through investments from people and companies who built, support, use and believe in the product was an ideal path forward.”

Proof has a broad base of shareholders, including The Scibetta Fund, Vaulting Ventures, High West Venture Partners, Lewis Family Enterprises, LDWW Group, KRB Ventures, Webonise Labs, and an array of both current and former senior business leaders from organizations such as Accenture, BMC Software, Concur Technologies, Edelman, Hill & Knowlton, Honeywell, HP, IBM, Intellectual Ventures, Microsoft, Oracle, ServiceNow, Starbucks, and WE Communications.

Jason Frye, BMC’s vice president of digital innovation and an early contributor to the Proof product team, has watched the company mature quickly.

 “Proof recruited some amazing senior corporate technologists,” Frye said.  “I’m talking really big names. Compensation for everyone was initially in the form of generous option grants tied to performance objectives. After devoting a lot of time to helping create the product, many of us also activated our options because we’re really impressed with the product and the company.  Today, every person involved in Proof has a real stake in the company, and no one has preferred shares. It is the sort of opportunity that tech-savvy investors love but hardly ever see in a startup.”

Proof is using the investment to drive continuous development and improvement of the platform, as well as the expansion necessary to meet the rapidly increasing demand since the official launch of Proof in December 2016.