PeakEquity Partners’ sixth software investment; over $335 million of fund & co-investor equity invested since inception
PeakEquity Partners (“PeakEquity”), a software focused private equity firm, today announced that it led an investment in BERA Brand Management (“BERA” or the “Company”) out of PeakEquity Partners I, L.P. (“PEP I”). BERA is a New York-based software company that is disrupting how brands measure, manage and maximize their customer relationships. The investment includes participation by global brand executive and former CMO of Proctor & Gamble, Jim Stengel and his research arm, Stengel Analytics.
“This investment and the support of the team at PeakEquity Partners will enable BERA to grow its team, scale its brand intelligence and analytics platform, and expand its global presence.” said Ryan Barker, CEO and Co-Founder of BERA. “PeakEquity and its operating executives have differentiated experience in building software companies that will be valuable as BERA continues to execute on our vision and accelerate global growth.”
BERA’s data platform includes real-time measurement of over 4,000 brands across 200 sectors – large and small. The Company reaches over one million Americans matching census and generates 1.2 billion data points annually. The result is one of the industry’s most complete and actionable views of how to measure, manage, and maximize the relationship between consumers and brand.
“BERA’s disruptive solution is fundamentally changing the way companies assess and manage their brand health.” said D.J. Andrzejewski, Partner of PeakEquity. “PeakEquity believes this transaction will enable BERA to build on its history of product innovation, capitalize on its strong market position and accelerate growth.”
BERA is differentiated in its ability to provide a single metric that can be used across sectors to measure a brand’s effectiveness at scale. The Company helps marketing, brand, and finance leaders understand which levers to pull in order to improve brand performance and achieve business growth.
Two of PeakEquity’s operating executives, Jim Sheward and Brian Nejmeh, will take board roles at BERA. Sheward was the founder and CEO of Fiberlink, a market leading SaaS business that was successfully sold to IBM. Sheward has great expertise in sales and go-to-market strategies and operations. Nejmeh’s focus over the past 25 years has been on scaling software companies leveraging his core competencies in product development, product management and technology leadership.
“We are excited to partner with the team at BERA to take advantage of a strong market opportunity.” said Sheward, Senior Operating Partner of PeakEquity. “BERA’s solution should enable companies to not only understand the components of brand performance, but also take action and drive business outcomes based on insights generated by the BERA platform.”
The BERA transaction represents PeakEquity Partner’s sixth subscription-based, recurring revenue software investment. Since inception, PeakEquity Partners has invested over $335 million on behalf of PEP I and its co-investors.