Evernote Raises $20 Million and Plans Aggressive International Expansion

Evernote is announcing today that it has raised $20 million in a Series C round led by Sequoia Capital. The funding news comes as the startup celebrates 4.7 million users worldwide, and follows the $10 million Series B round raised less than one year ago.

“We originally didn’t plan on raising additional money … but we started looking for opportunities to scale faster and Sequoia made us an offer that got us excited,” CEO Phil Libin shared in an interview withMashable.

Libin disclosed that Evernote still has roughly $9.5 million in funding left over from the previous round and is operating almost entirely off of premium subscriptions.

The funds, then, will be applied to aggressive international expansion that will include both product rollouts in languages beyond the 14 the company already supports and physical offices in additional countries, he says.

Internationalization is a huge priority for the 2.5-year-old company, which is seeing fast uptake in Japan. The startup released a Japanese version of its product just six months ago, and already Japan makes up almost 20% of the user base, according to Libin. Evernote now operates an office in Japan to support the rapid growth and its many API partners in that country.

Evernote will also likely develop a ground presence somewhere in Europe and Southeast Asia, as well as release versions of its product in Latin American languages.

Libin anticipates that by this time next year, Evernote will almost double in employee size. The company currently has 45 employees but is in “full on hiring mode, hiring in the Bay Area as fast as we can get excellent people, hiring overseas and staffing up our Japanese office,” he says.

The startup will also use the financing to make a push at becoming an even more indispensable memory tool. Libin designs to go after the education and business verticals to make that happen.

As part of the investment deal, Sequoia Capital’s Roelof Botha will join Evernote as an adviser and board observer.

[via mashable]

Posted in: Evernote,Tech