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York social media company Stashmetrics lands £250k investment to ramp up operations

York-based Stashmetrics, a company that helps brands to harness the power of social media, has secured a £250k investment from Finance Yorkshire.

Founded by Mike Houston and Sam Oakley, the pair have developed software that provides insights for marketing professionals, increasing the impact of their budgets and saving them time.

The Finance Yorkshire Seedcorn investment will be used to build the Stashmetrics sales team, increase marketing, develop new products and recruit developers.

The firm’s customers include Unilever, Sony Mobile, Diageo, United Nations, Care Quality Commission, Givaudan, Camelot and Nestle, as well as media agencies Havas and Mindshare.

Mike said: “There are some really good tools to help companies understand what people are saying about them on social media but most of the decisions that marketers make are based on people, not keywords.

“Our software identifies the people on social media who have the real power to reach their target audience.”

Sam said: “The ultimate aim is to gain people’s permission to advertise to them by providing content they actually like.

“We have proved that the product works and we have some excellent case studies. Now we need to make it available to a much bigger audience.”

He said the company aims to adopt a ‘Software as a Service’ model, which means the programme can be hosted by Stashmetrics but licensed to users in the UK and overseas.

“This money will enable us to continue to grow. It allows our developers to further develop our software and realise the vision that we intended for it.”

To date Finance Yorkshire has invested £97m, enabling companies to increase their turnover by £352 million and attract a further £187 million from other private sector sources. Through this activity, Finance Yorkshire investment has helped those SMEs to create and safeguard more than 10,670 jobs in Yorkshire and the Humber.

Graham Davies, Investment Manager at Finance Yorkshire said: “When we first met with Sam and Mike to review their business plan, we knew the business had huge potential. They have now refined their software and built an impressive portfolio of clients.

“This is a real step forward in social media analytics and we look forward to helping them to develop the offering further.”

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