PR tech firm Muck Rack raises $180 million

Muck Rack, the public relations tech company, has raised $180 million, the company's first outside investment.

Why it matters: It's one of the largest growth equity investments in public relations tech on record.

• The communications tech sector has boomed in the wake of the pandemic as more companies invest in better internal and eternal messaging.

Catch up quick: Muck Rack was founded in 2009 and has bootstrapped its growth since.

• It licenses software to communications and public relations departments at various companies and organizations to help them manage relationships with journalists and content creators.
• Journalists have free access to Muck Rack's platform to build profiles so they can better connect with various public relations departments.

By the numbers: The company currently has over 200 employees. The money will be used to hire more people as a part of a global expansion.

• The firm, which grew revenues more than 300% between 2018 and 2021, has been profitable for over a decade.
• Today, tens of thousands of journalists have Muck Rack profiles.

Details: The series A round is a minority investment from Susquehanna Growth Equity (SGE), a growth equity firm.

• With the investment, SGE managing directors Josh Elser and Scott Feldman will join Muck Rack’s board.
• The money will also help co-founders, chief executive officer Greg Galant and chief technology officer Lee Semel, as well as early employees, liquidate some of their investment.

What's next: The company also plans to make improvements to its public relations management platform with the additional cash.

• It will continue to focus on providing workflow tools that integrate with the data from its corporate clients.
• It soon plans to release its own API (backend computer interface) that makes it easy for companies to integrate Muck Rack's analytics dashboards with a company's existing marketing stack.
• It will also continue to invest in the free services it offer for journalist and creators to showcase their work.

The bottom line: "The PR world has never really had a system of record," Galant told Axios' Dan Primack in a phone interview.