Commsor Raises a $50m Community-Led Series B

A note from our team: As excited as we are to announce our Series B, we can’t share this news without acknowledging the heartbreaking situation in Ukraine. As a global, remote-first company, this is a situation that affects us all, directly or not. We’re donating $50,000 to Come Back Alive, World Central Kitchen, and Kyiv Independent. We encourage others to learn more about how they can help here.

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Just two years ago, I was pounding the pavements in New York and San Francisco, bouncing from one meeting to the next. I spoke to almost 50 investors, trying to help them understand this thing called ‘community’.

Meeting after meeting, it didn’t seem like the VC world was quite ready to buy in to the future we wanted to build for — until one of them understood. And the rest, as they say, is history.

It would feel natural to segue here by telling you I can’t believe how far we’ve come since then, but that’s not true at all. I can believe that Commsor, and the community industry as a whole, has experienced the phenomenal growth we’ve seen in the past two years — because it was only a matter of time.

Our Community-Led future is on the horizon.

In the last two years alone, we’ve seen a 22% increase in organizations with Community teams, and a 25% increase in companies with community leadership representation, according to our Community-Led Report. And in 2022, we know that more companies than ever are hiring and growing their Community teams.

Everything we do at Commsor is in pursuit of the Community-Led future: a future where companies move from treating community as an add-on or afterthought and start putting authenticity, relationships, and humanity at the heart of how they do business.

So today, we’re excited to announce that Commsor has raised a $50m Community-Led Series B round, anchored by Atomico, a number of other incredible funds, and a community of 150+ individual investors, who all believe in that future as much as we do.

We’re thrilled to share that Atomico and Slack Fund, among others, have joined existing investors 776, SignalFire, and Felicis in backing our Community-Led Series B.  

They’re joined by a number of community of supporters, including community experts like Holly Firestone, Erica Kuhl, Tristan Pollock, and Shana Sumers, as well as some of the world’s most dynamic founders, including Vlad Magdalin (Webflow), Gina Bianchini (MightyNetworks), Des Traynor (Intercom), Zach Sims (Codecademy), and Mariano Suarez-Battan (MURAL). We’re also excited to welcome operators and individuals such as Darren Murph (Gitlab), Julie Herendeen, and Casey Neistat to our growing community!

“I’ve long been a fan of Commsor and all the work they’ve done in elevating community professionals and the industry as a whole, so joining this Community-Led round was a no-brainer,” says Erica Kuhl, CEO at EKC and former VP of Community at Salesforce. “I can’t wait to see how Commsor, The Community Club and all their initiatives propel community forward in the months and years to come.”

Along with our earlier investors like Elad Gil, Mathilde Collin, Jono Bacon, Tod Sacerdoti, Josh Buckley, and Lachy Groom, our Series B round brings our total investor community to well over 200 people.

As part of this round, Carter Adamson, Partner at Atomico, also joins our board. "I am a huge believer in the power of communities in driving sales, recruitment, advocacy and many other critical areas,” Carter says. “Commsor are the world's only full-stack category leaders in this emerging field of Community-Led.”

Our pioneering Community-Led round

At Commsor, we strive to be Community-Led in everything we do — even when it comes to funding.

Party rounds and crowdfunding have become more and more common in recent years. We believe they’ll evolve to become more intentional, curated Community-Led rounds, and the norm at companies with an authentic, human-centric approach.

The benefits of raising funds in this way abound. Imagine having a community of highly invested (pun intended) backers who can provide perspectives, expertise, and resources from a plethora of industries all over the world. That’s part of the incredible power of community — and exactly what Commsor has now.

A Community-Led round is effectively an exercise in intentional community building — our ultimate goal was to bring people together around Commsor as a shared passion.

Unlike a party round or crowdfunding, we didn't just open our doors and let anyone with a checkbook jump in. We selectively sought out people with different backgrounds, skillsets, and experiences, and not just professional investors or community pros.

I spoke to every single person who invested, making sure they understood who we are, what we're doing, and why we're doing it — and that they believe in Community-Led as much as we do.

More than just software

These funds will be put to work at Commsor to help us expand our team and further develop and refine the tools, programs, and resources we’ve been building to empower organizations and Community Managers everywhere.

Among these are our Community Operating System, built to help companies tie their community ecosystems together to measure and drive impact, and Meetsy, to help communities and internal teams facilitate meaningful one-to-one connections.

But our products only represent one facet of our approach. Commsor is the world’s first and only full-stack community company.

As part of this approach, we combine software, community, strategic services, and educational resources to give organizations the integrated solution they need to become Community-Led.

Our community, The Community Club, is a space where thousands of community builders and enthusiasts come together to share knowledge, resources, and opportunities, and get and give help and support. Part of the Club is our Mentorship program, which pairs community experts with community newbies to help them kickstart their careers.

We also offer Strategic Services to help companies build their communities from scratch, develop and refine their community strategies, hire their dream Community teams, and ultimately, guide them toward cementing community at the heart of their business.

C School, our community education program, offers live and self-paced courses to help community builders upskill and take the next step in their careers, no matter what stage they’re at. Community education is one of the cornerstones of Commsor and, we believe, essential to elevating the entire industry.

Commsor is the complete solution for Community-Led organizations. We couldn’t be more excited to double down on building for the future we believe in!‍