Austin's Spredfast raises $50 million to grow

Its 650 customers include Target, Bank of America, Airbnb and NBC Universal.

"Our new investor believes that this is the next huge global category," said Rod Favaron, Spredfast CEO. "That means you go after it aggressively. This round says strategic, and it says long term. We helped invent this category and we intend to be the leader when the dust settles."

The social marketing software business is currently dominated by large players including Oracle, Adobe and Salesforce.com, as well a growing number of small companies that offer individual tools.

Favaron said Spredfast is positioned between the two, which allows it to be more nimble than the big players, while offering more product depth than the startups.

"What's specific to this market is how fast you have to innovate," he said. "Our biggest challenge is now we're not a startup anymore, we're a much bigger company, and we have to maintain our ability to go fast and be very innovative."

To stay ahead, Spredfast may consider acquiring smaller companies, Favaron said.

The company doesn't disclose financial details, but Favaron said revenue grew 130 percent in 2015 from the year before.

Spredfast has 550 employees, including 330 in Austin. The company is hiring across the board.

The investment is believed to be the second largest in an Austin company this year. In March, Pivot3, which develops server and storage virtualization software and hardware, raised $55 million in equity and bank financing.