When your company boosts customer count by more than 800 percent and revenue by 3,000 percent, potential investors are likely to pay attention.

That certainly was the case for Durham startup Windsor Circle – and its customer count as well as cash flow didn’t start 2012 at zero.

Marketing retention software is a hot market segment, and Windsor Circle is winning legions of corporate followers with soaring revenue as a result. That combination enabled its management team to raise $1.1 million in December with Triangle Angle Partners, IDEA Fund Partners and angel investor Bruce Boehm providing the cash to set the stage for more growth in 2013.

The Skinny caught up with co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Matt Williamson to talk about the deal.

Why raise the funds now?

By end of year, Windsor Circle will have achieved customer base growth of 871% in 2012, and revenue growth of more than 3000%.

We’re achieving a sales efficiency that warrants pouring fuel on the fire, and as such, we’re running hard to keep expanding.

We want to be the center of the Retention Marketing Automation universe, and doing so requires fast growth, big targets and the fuel to get there.

I should take a moment to state that Idea Fund Partners and Square One Bank have been tremendous partners in this journey, and that we couldn’t have achieved what we have without their participation and support.

How will funds be spent?

We’ve just launched our new Retention Marketing Analytics platform into beta, which we’re calling WCAnalyze.

We believe that it is the industry’s first analytics platform specifically focused on helping retailers retain and grow their best and most valuable asset… their customers!

Examples of the insights that can be gathered through this focus can be found at www.windsorcircle.com/stats.

We’re beta testing our new WCAnalyze platform right now, but as we launch that product into full production in 2013, we will be aggressively promoting exciting new programs to help retailers leverage our platform.

The launch will require additional marketing expenditures and headcount, and the successful growth in adoption will require more folks in our Client Success department.

We’re very excited about the growth of our team.

Are you hiring? If so, how many people and in what areas/positions?

We are indeed. We’re adding three positions, immediately, with more in the future. The three we’re hiring for right away are:
VP Marketing – We hope to announce a key hire very soon! We think we have a real winner lined up.

Marketing Associate – This person needs to be a fantastic researcher and writer, and be good at organizing and managing a dynamic set of partner and marketing logistics.

Client Success Associate – We like to think of this role as 2/3 technical support, 1/3 marketing strategy, and 100% passionate about seeing our clients double their retention marketing rates!

These hires (which we want to complete yesterday! haha) will take us from 9 full time staff to 12. Readers who are looking to be an integral and early part of a venture backed start up should visit www.windsorcircle.com/jobs

We will continue operating from our HQ in Downtown Durham, where we share office space with EdgeOffice, the leading supplier of office systems and environments in the Triangle (and who is deeply supportive of and committed to the entrepreneurial community in the area).