Portland Data Tech Firm Janrain Scores $27 Million in Funding Round

Janrain gathers Facebook login data for AMC, Whole Foods and others.

Investors have gone wild for so-called big data firms and related technologies, and Portland-based Janrain is the latest to capitalize.

The company has attracted a fourth round of funding worth $27 million, bringing the data tech company's total investor funding to more than $78.25 million since its Series A round in 2009.

As a result, expect more hiring in the company's downtown offices in the historic Dekum Building on SW 3rd Ave, the former abode of Wieden+Kennedy.

"We'll hire in Portland," said Martin Day, the firm's first chief financial officer, who joined from Portland's motorcycle parts and apparel company MotoSport in June.

Janrain plans to grow its staff by 15 percent from a current 100 people in the Portland office, and around 25 internationally including a recently-added office in China.

Janrain calls itself a "customer identity management solutions company." What that means: Internet users come in contact with the company all the time when they login to e-commerce, music streaming or other websites.

When people sign in to AMC.com to watch The Walking Dead or to WholeFoods.com to order groceries using Facebook, Twitter or Google Plus, for instance, Janrain is on the back-end managing that connection—and gathering public profile data associated with that social media account.

On Facebook, that means Janrain is gathering that person's name, email address, profile image, age range, gender and other information people haven't hidden behind a privacy wall which might include "likes," and passing it along to that client.

The company has expanded its services for electronics giant Philips since the last funding round in 2013, and added Johnson & Johnson as a client in late 2014.

Janrain's latest cash infusion is led by HighBar Partners, a private investment firm based in Menlo Park, Calif. that focuses on software companies. Janrain's Series C round of $33 million in 2013 was its largest windfall from investors to date.

Identifying consumers is growing business. Companies want to be able to use identifiable data to connect the dots representing an individual across her daily interactions on a mobile device, online on a laptop, or even while making in-store purchases.

To do that, they need permission, which can come from the types of social logins enabled by Janrain since they require people to approve collection of their personal data.

As these technologies increase in demand, larger firms could be interested in acquiring Janrain or others like it. Janrain itself recently bought Arktan, a small startup which offers historical Facebook data analysis and hosts enables online comments and reviews.

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