Web Analytics Pioneer Brett Hurt Starts New Company To Help Online Brands Build Their Business Through Word of Mouth

Bazaarvoice Launches With Nearly $4 Million in Series A Funding from Austin Ventures

Austin, Texas – January 11, 2006 – Coremetrics founder and Shop.org board member Brett Hurt today introduced Bazaarvoice, a new company aimed at online brands who want to enlist their customers in building their business. Guided by Hurt, who successfully serviced over 400 of the world’s largest multi-channel retailers while at Coremetrics, Bazaarvoice helps CMOs and eCommerce executives drive greater business impact from word of mouth, the oldest form of marketing.

“Word of mouth, which drove product decisions in the original bazaars, has a profound impact on business success in the open online market,” said Brett Hurt, president and CEO of Bazaarvoice. “There is a tectonic shift in power from marketing executives to consumers, and companies are struggling to bridge the gap between the democracy of consumer-generated content and the realities of business practice, policies, and systems. Bazaarvoice was founded to give online brands the technology, team, and processes they need to help customers build their business for them.”

Bazaarvoice also announced that it has secured nearly $4 million in a Series A round led by Austin Ventures. Six highly-respected serial entrepreneurs also joined the series A round including: Josh Kopelman, founder of Half.com and partner in the highly successful venture firm First Round Capital; Julie Constantin, co-founder of Constantin Partners; Jamie Crouthamel, founder and former CEO of Performics; David Reibstein, co-founder and ten-year Board member of BizRate; and Eric Simone, founder of Compete (acquired by Perficient).

"Bazaarvoice is at the center of a new consumer-centric eCommerce revolution. Backed by a phenomenal team and founded on concrete business fundamentals, Bazaarvoice is a key investment in our highly selective portfolio," said Chris Pacitti, general partner at Austin Ventures. "Bazaarvoice has a deep understanding of how online brands can harness the power of customer-to-customer conversations. With several high-profile customers already on board, Bazaarvoice is on track to become the leader in this emerging market. As a member of the Board of Directors, I'm excited to accompany Bazaarvoice in its quest to bring the age-old power of word of mouth to the Internet."

Several of the industry’s most influential thought leaders have joined Bazaarvoice’s Board of Advisors. Current board members include marketing expert and New York Times best-selling author Bryan Eisenberg; BizRate co-founder David Reibstein; Wharton Professor Peter Fader; and angel investor Julie Constantin.

“Consumers today are more cynical than ever about advertising messages. As a result, they’re turning to friends, family, and fellow consumers to make purchasing decisions rather than simply taking the word of the company,” said Bryan Eisenberg, marketing expert and New York Times best-selling author. “The biggest emerging trend of 2006 is word of mouth marketing, and Bazaarvoice is leading the charge by helping companies harness the customer’s voice in the most persuasive way possible. I predict that Bazaarvoice will change the way companies think about marketing and will drive eCommerce to new levels.”

Word of Mouth Market Opportunity
RoperASW, which surveys customers to rank the best sources of product information, reported that the aggregate value of word of mouth has exploded from 67% in 1977 to 93% in 2001, roughly twice the value of advertising and editorial content which both decreased within the same period.

The proliferation of consumer-generated content, as well as the explosion in the amount of information and products available online, has turned word of mouth into a powerful force on the Internet. Credible voices are amplified to a global audience through link sharing and search engine results, where they become easily accessible to the more than 113 million Americans who go online to research products and services.

Bazaarvoice is uniquely positioned to help online brands encourage and leverage authentic and credible word of mouth, and transform customer-generated content into successful business initiatives. The company is the first to provide a complete package of outsourced technology and services to allow retailers to encourage and harness word of mouth, and bring it closer to the brand and customer experience. Bazaarvoice is currently in stealth mode and will launch its first product in Q1 of this year.

Bazaarvoice Team
Led by Hurt, who defined the high-end Web analytics market and drove the adoption of hosted Web analytics by such brands as Costco, Neiman Marcus, REI, Staples, and Williams-Sonoma, the Bazaarvoice team has more than 40 years of combined leadership experience in online community, word of mouth marketing, eCommerce platforms, and SaaS development and operations management.

Brant Barton, co-founder and vice president of client services brings a deep knowledge of online retailing and nearly a decade’s experience in product & service development. Barton previously served as director of account services at Coremetrics. The leadership team also includes Paul Rogers, vice president of engineering, who spent 13 years in various development and technical management roles at Trilogy Software with a core focus on eCommerce.

About Bazaarvoice

Bazaarvoice’s Software as a Service (SaaS) social commerce solutions have served more than 50 billion pieces of customer-generated content on more than 525 brand web sites like Best Buy, Costco, Dell, Macy’s, Overstock, P&G, Panasonic, QVC and USAA in 36 countries. The company connects organizations to their influencers through a unique network that reaches hundreds of millions of consumers around the globe, enabling authentic customer-powered marketing. Through syndication, analytics, partnerships, and consulting, Bazaarvoice brings the voice of the customer to the center of their clients’ business strategy, proving “social” can drive measured revenue growth and cost savings for manufacturing, retail, travel, and financial services companies. Headquartered in Austin, the company has offices in London, Paris, and Singapore. For more information and access to client success stories, visit www.bazaarvoice.com, read the blog at www.bazaarblog.com, and follow on Twitter at www.twitter.com/bazaarvoice.

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