Smedvig Capital leads GBP 5m investment in Quill

London: 10th March 2014: Global content creators Quill announce the closure of an oversubscribed £5m (US $8.5m) investment round, led by London based investment house Smedvig Capital. Members of the D5 Capital investor club participated in the seed round in 2012.

The investment will allow Quill, which provides businesses with bespoke content on any topic, in any format and any language, to consolidate its position as the UK’s content marketing leader and to advance the roll-out of its proprietary SaaS Platform. The platform manages a unique and rapidly expanding global network of over 2,000 specialist content creators, including writers, editors, graphic designers, photographers and video producers who span 17 countries.

With more than 25 per cent of Quill’s revenues already generated from overseas markets, the funding will further accelerate the company’s international growth ambitions, as it expands its service presence into China, Germany and the US.

Quill seeks to help businesses better reach, acquire and retain their customers through bespoke digital content. The company sees content – whether in the form of words, images, graphics or video – becoming a more cost-effective alternative to traditional paid-for advertising, as brands seek to differentiate themselves in the increasingly competitive and fragmented digital marketplace and to improve their return on online marketing investment.

The development of the Quill Platform, which monitors the quality of all content produced, uniquely enables Quill to deliver multi-language content of consistent quality at scale, more effectively than is possible in-house or via traditional agency models. The SaaS version of the Platform is designed to help brands build their own publishing capabilities, as content and commerce on the web converge at an accelerating pace.

Smedvig joins a strong group of established digital investors including Ariadne Capital Entrepreneurs Fund, Spotify’s Shakil Khan, Toptable founder Karen Hanton. Smedvig will sit on the board alongside Julie Meyer of Ariadne. Dan’l Hewitt, formerly of Demand Media and Vice Media also joins the investor roster. Quill’s current clients include major advertising groups WPP, Aegis and Publicis; and brands including Shop Direct Group, LA fitness, STA Travel, Reckitt Benckiser and 888.com.