• Linktree raised US$10.7 million (A$15 million) in its first ever funding round, backed by Airtree Ventures and Insight Partners.
• Co-founder and CEO Alex Zaccaria told Business Insider Australia the company has been “cash positive” since it began but elected to raise capital to expand the business.
• The funds will be used to grow the business both in Australia and globally.
• Visit Business Insider Australia’s homepage for more stories.

Aussie company Linktree has raised US$10.7 million (A$15 million) in its first ever funding round.

Linktree allows users to collate their online content – whether it be website, online store or blog – under one link. These links are popularly used on Instagram bios, which only permit a single link.

Founded in 2016, the Melbourne-based company has since grown to have eight million global users and more than 28,000 sign ups a day. It’s used by celebrities like Selena Gomez, major global brands like Red Bull, creatives, chefs, small business owners and everyone in between.

Its Series A funding round was led by US-based Insight Partners, which backs the likes of Shopfiy, and Aussie venture capital firm AirTree Ventures, which has backed design juggernaut Canva. There were also some strategic investors including the CTOs of Patreon and Culture Amp.

Linktree co-founder and CEO Alex Zaccaria told Business Insider Australia the company has been “bootstrapped and cashflow positive since day one.”

“We’ve really enjoyed doing that despite a lot of interest in investors over the years,” he said. “We’ve really kept our heads down and just continued to really focus on the product.”

However, Linktree decided to launch a funding round to further grow the business.

“We realised that this category that we created has grown and scaled massively,” Zaccaria added. “There are competitors entering the market –99% of our users are outside of Australia and we’re growing globally really significantly every day.

“We decided now is the time to bring in some capital, but more importantly bring in teams and partners that have done this before. [That] have worked with a lot of other companies that have scaled massively like this so they can help us see around corners and help us make the right decisions to scale Linktree into what it can be.”

Having Insight Partners and AirTree Ventures back the business was “humbling” for Zaccaria, who said that it was a competitive round with a number of investors being interested in Linktree. The funds will be used to grow Linktree’s team both in Australia and globally, through areas such as engineering and data science.

Airtree General Partner John Henderson said in a statement, “Linktree is the future of social commerce. The product’s elegant simplicity conceals an extraordinary vision to empower creators to seamlessly engage with their fans and monetise their content without friction or middlemen.

“Linktree’s growth to date has been nothing short of extraordinary – if you’re on a social network, you literally can’t miss it.”

Zaccaria explained that COVID has accelerated digital transformation among businesses, speeding it up from around 10-15 years to just six months. He was proud that Linktree has been able to support businesses transitioning to online platforms, help individuals start side hustles and even facilitate the sharing of resources for the Black Lives Matter movement.

“Linktree has been such a simple, effective, affordable, easy way to get online and create your own digital presence super simply,” he said.

Zaccaria also described another proudest moment he has experienced at Linktree so far: when Alicia Keys signed up to the platform.

“When Alicia Keys first signed up as one of our first massive influential user, that was a pinch me moment – a humbling moment because we had initially built Linktree with music in mind,” he said. “So to see a musician of that calibre using it and understanding what we built it for was awesome.”

Internally, Linktree has been offering a flexible working option for its staff, with CTO Mitch Malone even travelling and working from a caravan.

“When we moved into COVID times and had to leave the office, that wasn’t really a big shift for us,” Zaccaria said.

He explained that “Linktree was always built to be flexible”, with a mentality that allows staff to work whenever and wherever they want as long as it doesn’t negatively affect their team members. The company also plans to be a hybrid workplace once employees can go back to office.

Looking ahead, Linktree aims to continue streamlining user flows on the internet and be able to bring its service to billions of users.

“There’s currently trillions of dollars being left on the table from creators and everyone in between to be able to access, and we’re excited to unlock that for people,” Zaccaria said.

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