Bootstrapping Emma raises $5M in outside capital

Emma, a Nashville email marketing company, has raised $5 million from local investors — marking its first time to take outside capital.

Led by CEO and co-founder Clint Smith, Emma has long been pointed to as the local poster child of bootstrapping — funding growth through revenue rather than offering equity stakes to investors. It's a strategy Smith has found success with, building the company into a 150-person operation with more than 45,000 client businesses in 12 years.

Investors include Nashville Capital Network and North Carolina-based Square1 Bank. The new capital will help Emma expand its sales and marketing and build new products.

"With a great product and strong partnerships in place, we feel like it's time for us to move even faster," Smith said in a statement. "And as a historically bootstrapped company, we wanted to be very thoughtful about the shape of our first-ever outside capital raise."

Emma bought marketing software company Boomerang this year after opening a Melbourne, Australia, office. It also launched its first large-scale marketing conference, Marketing United, in Nashville this year, hosting 650 people.

"Emma has long been a much-admired brand here in Nashville," said Sid Chambless, executive director of Nashville Capital Network. "The opportunity to help Emma become a global leader in digital marketing was very attractive to our partnership. The management team, their current momentum and the huge market were all compelling factors that attracted this investment."

Reach Jamie McGee at 615-259-8071 and on Twitter @JamieMcGee_.