Capricorn Digital

StoryChief

Get to know StoryChief


Ghent-based startup StoryChief raises a € 3.4 million investment round, led by Capricorn Partners via their Capricorn Digital Growth Fund. With the new funds, StoryChief aims to further scale its platform for content agencies and marketers. Since launching in 2017, StoryChief has kept growing its customer base and tackling more complex challenges in the content marketing space.

Thinking back to the start of the company, what triggered the creation of StoryChief?

Valeri Potchekailov, StoryChief Founder: We started as a digital marketing agency and learned a lot from working closely with internal marketing teams of different enterprises. We soon realized that the decentralization of the content marketing processes was a big issue in these organizations.

Getting content online took ages simply because the operations were not centralized. People were sending Word documents through email, the copy versions were not SEO optimized, and there was no performance data and structure in the content archive. To top it off, there are plenty of channels out there to publish your content, but they are underused since replicating content in the right format from one channel to the other is very time-consuming. In order to set up such a process, you had to link multiple complex software applications. This resulted in processes that were difficult to work with.

We got the idea to create a very user-friendly platform where you have all your stakeholders and channels connected and centralized in order to collaborate, publish with a click and measure the performance of marketing content. This was the beginning of StoryChief.

Storychief has rapidly seen positive traction. What are some of the significant proof points with clients about your solution and your approach?

Valeri Potchekailov, StoryChief Founder: The fact that our product is very scalable and is being used in 70 different countries. This traction is a significant proof point that our solution is catching on. In theory, we can market it anywhere from USA, to Singapore and Argentina, which is a great feeling. It is a matter of where we aim our focus and where we want to go next.

StoryChief is solving a real problem in marketing operations, which makes it easy for customers to see and experience the value and return on investment.
Steven Lambert, Director Capricorn Digital
What are the challenges and goals for the next phase of StoryChief?

Valeri Potchekailov, StoryChief Founder: The focus for our next phase of growth is to scale our reach internationally with a robust go-to-market operations. To enable this, we are also aiming to find great talent to take our company to the next stage of growth.

You talked to many potential investors. Why did you decide to have Capricorn Partners and other investors jointly invest in StoryChief?

Valeri Potchekailov, StoryChief Founder: As a SaaS company from Belgium we find it important to work closely with a local VC, who brings international experience and reach. The fact that Capricorn Partners goes deep into the technology solution and brings a lot of affinity and expertise with AI and Data Science, has been a key driving factor for our decision on our investor of choice.

StoryChief in a nutshell

  • Founded in 2016

  • Located in Ghent

  • Presence in over 70 countries

What are the reasons that drove Capricorn to invest in Storychief?

Steven Lambert, Capricorn Partners : StoryChief is solving a real problem in marketing operations, which makes it easy for customers to see and experience the value and return on investment. Additionally, it is a great opportunity to apply AI to leverage market data to guide users in a smart way to further maximize the market impact of their marketing content.

In terms of market traction, StoryChief has been able to get their platform proven and adopted by many different marketing agencies and departments across several countries.

StoryChief is first mover in the next generation of smart marketing platforms which will not only replace point solutions, but also cover the entire content life cycle in a smart way.

What are the reasons that Peak Capital invested in StoryChief?

David Zwagemaker, Peak Capital : We invested in StoryChief back in 2019, as we saw online content move more towards long-form through outlets like Medium and Substack. While single-click distribution to social channels like LinkedIn and Facebook was already solved, the workflow to long-form channels was still broken back then.

StoryChief solved this specific issue with an early iteration of its product when we invested in 2019. Today it offers a broad suite for content marketeers that enables them to write, publish and analyze throughout the content lifecycle. We're excited to continue backing StoryChief by co-investing with Capricorn so StoryChief can continue to strengthen its content suite and become a category leader.

Something that was just an idea a few years ago is now a globally scaling business and is backed by the financial resources and coaching of some of the greatest minds in the industry.
Valeri Potchekailov, CEO StoryChief
What will be the first priority for this collaboration?

Steven Lambert, Capricorn Partners : The goal of this investment is now to accelerate its market reach through industrialized go-to-market operations. Furthermore, this round will enable StoryChief to further enrich its solution with even smarter guidance for users to maximize the market impact of their content, by leveraging AI and Machine Learning capabilities.

How does the investment feel for you as a founder?

Valeri Potchekailov, StoryChief Founder: We are super happy as for us this investment is a major milestone and validation that we are on the right track. Something that was just an idea a few years ago is now a globally scaling business and is backed by the financial resources and coaching of some of the greatest minds in the industry.