NEW YORK & TEL AVIV, Israel & BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--SundaySky, the leading software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform for efficient video creation and personalization at scale, today announced it has closed on a majority investment with Clearhaven Partners (“Clearhaven”), a Boston-based private equity firm focused exclusively on investing in leading software and technology companies, for more than $100 million. This investment provides capital for growth and innovation for SundaySky and liquidity for existing shareholders.
Powering over a billion unique video experiences per year, SundaySky’s SaaS platform features patented technology that allows business professionals, regardless of creative skill level, to efficiently create, personalize, manage, distribute and optimize captivating videos to reach their valuable constituents. SundaySky’s technology platform empowers businesses to reduce their reliance on traditional resource-intensive video production models and services that incur significant costs, time and require specialized creative and technical skills.
“This partnership marks the start of an exciting new chapter at SundaySky,” said Jim Dicso, CEO of SundaySky. “Since launching our next generation platform in 2021, the market’s response has exceeded even our most ambitious forecasts and underscored the need to have the right partner on board to fully realize our potential. With Clearhaven’s investment thesis in the video space and proven track record of profitably scaling SaaS companies, we will accelerate our growth trajectory, reach new levels of scale, and better execute on our mission to empower organizations to unleash the power of video. In these economically challenging times, business leaders need a more efficient way to use video when compared to legacy methods which are traditionally slow, difficult, and costly.”
“The proliferation of video as a medium of communication is self-evident today. Historically, however, the creation and distribution of compelling video communications required significant time and resources, which made it prohibitive for organizations to utilize at scale. What excites us about SundaySky is the elegance by which the Company’s innovative SaaS platform enables businesses to efficiently scale their use of video communications to customers, employees and other constituents through the platform’s ease of production, personalization and distribution,” said Michelle Noon, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Clearhaven Partners. “SundaySky is an exceptional technology company that is well positioned to capitalize on a tremendous market opportunity as organizations continue to expand their use of video to drive business impact. Businesses that use SundaySky’s software benefit from the sophistication and power of video through simple, cost-effective technology solutions, thereby enabling reduced business operating expense with increased customer retention and revenue growth. We look forward to partnering with SundaySky management and its talented U.S. and Israeli teams to scale the business rapidly and profitably.”
An overwhelming majority (89%) of companies using video today plan to continue or increase their current use in the future, according to a new study of over 570 leaders commissioned by SundaySky and performed by Cite Research. To support SundaySky’s next stage of growth, the company has also expanded its leadership team and appointed veteran executives with deep experience leading key functions at rapidly growing SaaS companies.
Recent executive additions include:
- Bryan Day as chief financial officer (CFO), who previously held executive roles in finance and operations at SaaS, media, and internet companies, including IAC and Angi;
- Mark Tack as chief marketing officer (CMO), who previously held chief marketer and divisional CMO roles at public companies Acxiom and Experian as well as venture and private equity-backed companies Integrate and Vibes; and
- Sean Chinski as chief revenue officer (CRO), bringing nearly 20 years of experience in leadership roles in revenue and customer functions for high-growth technology companies including Sprout Social leading up to its IPO, MarketWired leading up to its acquisition by Nasdaq, SAP’s user community ASUG and Google Cloud’s user community C2C.
SundaySky provides data-driven video software through its patented video technology to global Fortune 500 and mid-market companies, including Verizon, UnitedHealthcare, Staples, 1-800 Contacts, Okta, and Rent-A-Center, among many others. In 2021, the company launched its next generation enterprise SaaS platform, which further streamlined the platform for simplicity, impact and scalability, including out-of-the-box templates based on SundaySky’s accumulated expertise over more than a decade on how to generate video-driven business outcomes. The current platform allows customers greater ease of use, efficient video creation and massive scalability. Additional features allow users to update real-time videos quickly with modular building blocks, reusable asset libraries, and personalized text-to-speech voiceover narration, as well as to optimize video content by measuring viewer engagement, discover insights, and A/B test to maximize performance. Since the next generation launch, SundaySky has grown its customer count by more than 100%.
SundaySky customers benefit from the ability to use video across multiple use cases, helping their organizations to achieve quantifiable business outcomes, such as increased revenue, reduced costs, lower churn, and higher customer satisfaction. SundaySky’s platform provides easy-to-use creation tools and templates that let users plan, design and configure exceptional, high-quality videos that can be personalized by leveraging data for specific audiences or individuals.
Meitar served as legal counsel and Jefferies served as financial adviser to SundaySky. Kirkland and Ellis LLP and Herzog, Fox and Neeman served as legal counsel to Clearhaven Partners.
About SundaySky
SundaySky is leading the video revolution for businesses, enabling users to efficiently create, personalize, distribute and optimize video at scale. Customers such as 1-800 Contacts, Bank of America, Okta, Rent-A-Center, Select Blinds, Staples, UnitedHealthcare, United Airlines, Verizon and many others have adopted SundaySky to help their organizations drive business outcomes. SundaySky’s Video Platform unleashes the true power of video by making it simple for users and scalable for organizations, resulting in improved return on investment through next level content effectiveness and efficiency. Headquartered in New York City, SundaySky has additional offices in Tel Aviv and Tokyo. For more information, visit www.sundaysky.com.
About Clearhaven Partners
Clearhaven Partners is a Boston-based private equity firm focused exclusively on software- and technology-focused investments. Clearhaven was founded by an investor-operator team to partner with growing, differentiated companies with at least $20 million in recurring revenue. Clearhaven brings a collective 50+ years of software investing and operating experience to its portfolio companies through its partnership approach and its value creation playbook, which couples actionable insights with practical tools and guidance to help companies scale profitably. Visit us at www.clearhavenpartners.com.
