Hoopla Software raises $8 million led by Trinity Ventures; moving to larger Malvern-area offices

Tom Paine

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Hoopla Software, which is headquartered in Silicon Valley but has an R&D office in West Chester, announced last week it had raised an $8 million Series B round led by Trinity Ventures. The round also included participation from previous investors Safeguard Scientifics (NYSE: SFE), Illuminate Ventures and additional private investors.

Hoopla, founded in 2010 by veteran Philadelphia-area entrepreneur Michael Smalls, provides cloud-based software that uses gamification techniques and insights gained
from data analysis to boost performance for groups such as sales and customer
service teams. The company said it grew over 250 percent in 2013, adding over 150 new customers.

Hoopla's LinkedIn page shows 26 employees, 9 of whom are based in the Philadelphia area. Hoopla hopes to double that headcount by the end of the year, and also plans to release
a mobile version in the Spring.

Salesforce participated in Hoopla's Series A, and Hoopla's website still emphasizes its
product's close integration with Salesforce's CRM platform. California-based Trinity Ventures also invested $6.25 million in Philadelphia-based RJMetrics last year.

Hoopla raised $2.8 million in its Series A round in 2012, led by Safeguard Scientifics.

Prior to founding Hoopla, Small's Philadelphia area experience included executive roles at Destiny Websolutions, TurnTide and ClickEquations.

Update 2/16: Responding to my email inquiry, CEO Michael Smalls tells me that Hoopla
is moving from West Chester to the Malvern area "with expanded space to enable us to continue to add to the engineering team there and add sales resources to give us better east coast coverage. John Galvin, our CTO (and colleague from Destiny and ClickEquations) runs the Philly area office." Smalls says he is now living in San Jose but makes frequent trips back to the area.

Hoopla was also named a finalist for the PACT Enterprise Awards ( to be presented on May 8) in the category of "Technology Startup Company."