Linkby Raises USD$15m Via Volition Capital, Has Sights Set on US

Australian adtech startup Linkby has raised AUD$23m (USD$15 million) in Series B funding, with the round led by Boston-based growth equity firm Volition Capital. This is Volition Capital’s first Australian investment, and will support Linkby’s US expansion and continued development of its platform.

“Over 80% of Linkby’s revenue now comes from the US and the UK. So Volition is backing Linkby’s proven status as the leader in Performance PR globally,” Chris Wirasinha, co-founder and CEO of Linkby, told LBB.

Linkby plans to use the new funding to grow its team in the US and speed up work on improving its platform. The goal is to make it easier for advertisers to find the best publishers to work with, set up campaigns more quickly and simply, and spend budgets more effectively based on what they want to achieve – whether that’s conversions, awareness, or traffic.

Speaking about the brand’s US expansion, Chris added, “55% of our revenue comes from the US and in recent months this has grown by as much as 100% YOY. We’ll be doubling the size of our North American team as part of this round of funding and have just moved into a larger office in New York.”

The investment will also help Linkby continue its work to be at the forefront of generative engine optimisation and emerge as a leader in the next era of search. 

As discoverability by large language models like ChatGPT increasingly favours premium publishers, Chris said, “Linkby helps brands supercharge their features across premium publishers, newsletters and creators. These highly trusted placements have a huge influence over LLM models.

“We’ve seen Linkby brands out perform their competitors on platforms like ChatGPT because of the volume of placements Linkby has helped them secure.”

With AI not going anywhere, generative engine optimisation will become as central to marketing strategies as SEO once was, he said, and “if anything the level of influence is likely to be higher as you’re not only receiving the information but a recommendation as well, often with direct comparisons to other purchase options.”

“Helping to influence this next wave of consumer search is a huge opportunity for brands and publishers and Linkby has become a key platform to help scale this up in a performance focused and measurable way,” he said.

Linkby is a platform that helps brands get their stories published by trusted publishers. Instead of paying large sums upfront for branded content or relying on strict affiliate programs, brands use Linkby to pitch directly to over 600 premium publishers and pay only when readers engage, using CPM pricing for greater control and transparency. Chris previously co-founded Australian youth publication Pedestrian, which he sold in two tranches to Nine between 2015 and 2018. After two decades spent building and running Pedestrian, he launched Linkby in 2020 alongside Andrew Chak and Adrian Fagerlund.

Over 3,800 consumer brands, including Charlotte Tilbury, Beyond Meat, Skechers, Free People, Skyscanner, T-Mobile, and Lululemon use Linkby to run content-led campaigns. The articles appear on major publisher sites like The Daily Mail, Condé Nast, and News Corp. 

“Linkby is building a performance-driven solution for brands to scale through trusted editorial,” said Jim Ferry, partner at Volition Capital. 

“By bringing accountability and efficiency to a traditionally high-cost, opaque part of the media mix, Linkby has unlocked a new channel for customer acquisition. Their model aligns with how modern brands want to buy media, and we believe they’re well-positioned to lead this category.”