Companies

Founded by Victoria Ransom and Alain Chuard, Wildfire pioneered the category of social media marketing software, and built a large customer base that included Facebook, AT&T, Pepsi, Sony, Unilever and Yahoo. Profitable nearly from the start, the bootstrapped company was growing 20% per month when the founders sought an experienced software investor who could help them scale rapidly while preserving Wildfire’s extraordinary culture and capital-efficient operating strategy.

How Summit helped:

• Led a minority investment and became the first board member outside of the cofounders
• Worked with the team to develop the infrastructure critical to support rapid growth
• Helped recruit a CMO, VP of Sales and CFO, and evaluated potential board members
• Assisted in scaling Wildfire’s inside sales organization—advising on best practices in compensation, quotas, hierarchy and metrics
• Helped expand the company’s geographic reach to London, Paris, Munich and Singapore
• Managed intense inbound interest from investors and acquirers, and the process leading to the acquisition by Google

By the summer of 2012, Wildfire had become the world’s largest provider of SaaS social marketing software, serving more than 16,000 customers, including 30 of the top 50 global brands. Later that year, Google acquired Wildfire for an undisclosed amount.