The Challenge

In the spring of 2008, Bay Area-based Rearden Commerce was in an exciting, yet challenging position. The company was on the verge of securing $100 million in new funding to support its rapid expansion and development plans, and preparing to unveil a strategic relationship with Chase, the well respected consumer and commercial banking division of financial services giant JPMorgan Chase. With new funding in hand, attracting top talent was imperative to the company’s ongoing success and growth. Rearden Commerce needed to compete against hot Bay Area companies like Google, Oracle and Salesforce.com to capture the attention of top tech talent and recruit new employees. The company turned to Tier One Partners to help the company unveil its new funding in a high-profile manner that would capture the hearts and minds of Bay Area technology talent looking for “the next big thing.”

Our initial research of how the media covers funding announcements revealed funding rounds are reported in a very straightforward, bare-bones way…oftentimes in simple business briefs. Based on that insight, Tier One developed a creative and results-oriented media strategy that positioned Rearden Commerce’s funding news as one of the biggest funding rounds to date in 2008 for an information technology firm and discussed how this funding supported the next stages of the company’s high-profile partnership with Chase. Our goal was to shine the spotlight on Rearden Commerce through this announcement and secure follow-up company profiles that positioned it as a hot Silicon Valley company and a player to watch -- ultimately driving inbound inquiries from highly-qualified recruiting candidates.

Our Approach

• Showcase the size of Rearden Commerce's secured funding ($100 million) as one of the biggest funding rounds to date in 2008
• Highlight the quality of Rearden Commerce's investing partners (American Express and JPMorgan Chase), and the company's impressive board of directors, as validation of Rearden Commerce's tremendous promise
• Court two top Bay Area "buzz builders" (The Wall Street Journal and TechCrunch) prior to the announcement and offer them the opportunity to break the news
• Aggressively pursue corporate profiles in publications read by the Bay Area technology community to support Rearden Commerce's recruiting goals
• Cast a wide net with remainder of the Bay Area media on announcement day and continue "rolling thunder" post-funding to secure larger company profiles
• Strategically merchandise on-message coverage to fuel the media fire

Results

Tier One's media strategy for Rearden Commerce's funding announcement secured in-depth positive profiles in high-profile publications and blogs such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The San Jose Mercury News, TechCrunch and eWeek. The messaging in these articles successfully described Rearden Commerce as a hot Silicon Valley company and a player to watch. Following is a sampling of how reporters described Rearden Commerce:

• "Patrick Grady has spent the past eight years of his life building the ultimate personal Web assistant in relative obscurity. But now his company, Rearden Commerce, is quietly emerging as major force among enterprise startups." TechCrunch
• "Rearden, it seems, has reached its tipping point. It sells services to 1,700 companies, up from 92 a couple years ago. After all this time, Grady is ready for take-off." Portfolio.com
• "To understand how Rearden Commerce has quietly become one of Silicon Valley's fastest-growing tech companies, it helps to get a sense of Hank Rearden (a fictitious character), perhaps the greatest industrialist who never lived." San Jose Mercury News

But most importantly, these articles directly helped Rearden Commerce achieve its business goal of attracting top-tier talent to the company. In late August, Rearden Commerce’s HR team stated, "Press is paying off. We have seen an unprecedented amount of unsolicited interest from senior candidates in the Valley."