AdHawk raises $13M in funding to make 75 new hires

Digital marketing firm AdHawk announced this week that it has raised $13 million in fresh funding.

The round comes on the heels of the company’s acquisition of FloorFroce, the largest digital flooring website and platform, in January. The new round of funding will help AdHawk expand its footprint in the flooring industry and grow its team, said Todd Saunders, CEO and co-founder of AdHawk.

“Together we can change the flooring industry,” Saunders said. “It’s an industry that hasn’t had innovation on the tech side in 50 years. By taking a company like FloorForce, that’s been in industry forever, and combining it with AdHawk...we have opportunity to help industry succeed and move forward.”

Saunders and his co-founder Dan Pratt left Google AdWords to launch AdHawk in 2015 with the goal of streamlining the digital marketing experience. Where platforms like AdWords and Facebook allowed companies to get started advertising right away, they still required hours of labor to analyze their data and execute a strategy, Saunders said.  

It’s an industry that hasn’t had innovation on the tech side in 50 years.” 

With AdHawk, Saunders and Pratt created a central platform that uses data science and machine learning to help companies big and small execute their ad campaign strategy.

“We wanted to create similar software given to masses, whether that’s companies spending thousands of dollars a month in digital advertising or just $5,000 [annually],” Saunders said.

The company joined forces with FloorForce, one of its first customers, in January. The acquisition will let the company tap into the $66 billion flooring industry, where they aim to help demystify the floor shopping experience. Too often consumers shopping for new flooring are flooded with options and prices, without the tools to make sense of them, Saunders said.

To that end, AdHawk recently launched a FlooringStores.com, a directory site that uses machine learning to connect users to the best flooring retailer and options near them.

Meanwhile, the company has been growing rapidly. Within the last year, AdHawk has grown from about 40 employees to more than 100. They’ve also moved into a new office in New York and expanded to Sarasota, Florida.

With this new round, the company plans to add 75 more employees and continue investing in its flooring and home service products.

Entrée Capital led the round, with participation from Table Managment, Accomplice, and others.