Contentful raises $33.5 million to reinvent content management systems

Berlin-based Contentful today announced it has $33.5 million in venture capital as it continues to expand its technology design to modernize content management.
Founded in 2013, the company is trying to address the tangled thicket of legacy CMS products that have evolved slowly over the years — and have given developers fits. Rather than a single interface that focuses primarily on one platform, Contentful has developed an API-based system that centralizes all content management and allows it to be optimized and distributed to any platform.
“What I find so interesting is this big change in the market,” said Contentful CEO and cofounder Sascha Konietzke. “We’re really seeing the end of this older content management system.”
This latest round was led by Sapphire Ventures and includes backing from Omers Ventures, Salesforce Ventures, and former investors General Catalyst, Benchmark, Balderton, and Hercules. The company has now raised a total of $78.3 million.
Contentful’s customers include not just media companies, but any large corporation that produces a wealth of online content. Larger companies in particular often face a daunting choice between building their own CMS from scratch or using an off-the-shelf CMS that has to be massively customized.
Konietzke said that having a centralized system means the content management process can continually be updated without concern that older content will get trapped in previous versions or CMS silos that may not be compatible.

“With the existing content management systems, the content is really locked into these systems,” he said.

The company’s central hub allows clients to edit and manage content and then send it directly to any type of interface or gadget, enabling companies to design and deploy new channels and content even faster, he said.
Konietzke said the company will use the new funding to continue developing the product while seeking partnerships with other companies that are disrupting aspects of the CMS process. Contentful currently has 205 employees, including 40 in San Francisco.
Source: VentureBeat
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