Investor interest in the startup’s recent growth spurred its third funding round, says co-founder Charise Flynn
Des Moines-based startup Hummingbirds announced Wednesday it has raised $5.4 million in new venture capital funding for a total of $10 million raised since its first fundraising round last year.
Hummingbirds’ platform aims to create authentic word-of-mouth marketing for national and local brands in local communities by partnering them with content creators, whom the company calls “hummingbirds.” The creators post on social media about their experience with brands and receive a perk from the brand.
The startup raised more than $1 million in its first round in January 2023 followed by a $3.3 million round in December 2023, which focused on accelerating the company’s national expansion.
Hummingbirds co-founder and Chief Operating Officer Charise Flynn said results from that effort took shape this year.
She said Hummingbirds expects to quadruple its revenue from last year, and it now operates in 20 cities in 11 states, more than doubling its presence from 2023. There are hummingbird communities in Texas, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, Indiana, Ohio, Missouri and Kentucky.
Flynn and co-founder and CEO Emily Steele originally weren’t planning to raise more venture capital until 2025, she said. But interest from investors, including lead investor Allos Ventures, changed that.
“This round actually came about really quickly because [Allos Ventures] was really excited about our traction, and they wanted to invest more, so they essentially put an offer in front of us that we thought was a really great partnership,” Flynn said. “I would say this round is all about our existing investors recognizing the really aggressive traction and growth that we’ve had the last year and just seeing an opportunity to continue to support our growth.”
Allos Ventures Managing Director David Kerr will join the company’s board of directors, bringing past experience in building hyperlocal marketing companies such as Groupon and Angie’s List.
This funding round was oversubscribed, meaning some investors who were interested were not able to invest. Flynn said that creates opportunity for those investors to join a future round of fundraising.
Other investors in Hummingbirds to date include Ground Game, M25 Fund, InnoVenture Iowa Fund, ISA Ventures, Next Level Ventures, AltiVentures and Homegrown Capital.
One of the biggest drivers of Hummingbirds’ growth this year came from working with national brands that are looking to generate traffic in cities where they’re distributed, Flynn said. Hummingbirds’ presence in new cities has helped it offer brands a wider reach.
Flynn said the company has seen success with consumer packaged goods brands in particular, such as Thelma’s Cookies, which is based in Des Moines and distributed nationally.
The expansion also helped Hummingbirds refine its strategy for forming creator communities in each new city and setting them up to grow, she said.
“It’s our secret sauce, it’s our playbook,” she said. “We know how to attract creators. We know how to build the community in a community-centric way and do that in a way that we can scale. … We’re really, the only ones who have built a platform in a community-by-community way and focused on a local person who has influence within their city.”
Leveraging the creator economy boom
Using content creators or influencers as a marketing channel, also known as the creator economy, has matured in recent years and is projected to become a larger market than traditional local advertising, Flynn said. She said the creator economy is a boon to Hummingbirds as it scales nationally.
“The creator economy went from being like, is the creator economy going to take off? Are businesses going to use creators? Are they going to allocate budget to it?” she said. “Now the question is not are they allocating budget to creators, but how much budget are they allocating to creators? We’ve just seen immense product-market fit as the industry itself has just blown up.”
Hummingbirds’ role in the burgeoning creator economy is to home in on everyday users of social media who have a connection with the community where they live, Flynn said.
“Large influencers target audiences on a national or global scale, making it hard for brands to
connect with customers in local markets,” Steele said in a news release. “Hummingbirds takes a different approach by linking brands with local voices — PTA moms, weekend warriors, and those friends who always seem to know what’s happening — who are trusted within their communities.”
Flynn said something that makes Hummingbirds different communities of local creators successful is finding those who naturally lean into supporting local brands.
“Part of it is finding creators that already use their voice to make an impact, and they’re doing it because that’s who they are as a person, not because they identify as an influencer,” she said.
The new funding will help Hummingbirds reach new growth milestones in 2025, including tripling its revenues from 2024, launching in at least 10 new cities, doubling the size of its team and tripling the number of active hummingbirds in its communities.
For the time being, Flynn and Steele’s focus is on adding value for brands by expanding and investing in innovations that serve their needs.
“Emily and I are very aligned [on if] you build something valuable, there’s always opportunity at the other end of it,” Flynn said. “At this point, I would say, let’s focus on what is right in front of us, and that’s building value for our customers and our community and building a valuable technology.”
She said women-founded companies like Hummingbirds’ having success raising venture capital is meaningful because it can inspire existing and future entrepreneurs.
“We always think about [how] success creates more success,” she said. “If we’re able to be an example of building a really financially solid company that is investable, I think other entrepreneurs and other women entrepreneurs can see that. We really have to change the statistics one funding at a time, but that’s why we’re always focused on building a really solid company that makes it to the next level.”