Boise's Balihoo reports boost in revenues, customers and jobs

Balihoo, a private company, didn’t share figures but said its revenue doubled compared with the same period in 2011. Its base of national brand customers jumped by 41 percent.

The company also expanded its staff by 43 percent in national brand account support, sales, finance, operations and human resources.

New clients include Aflac, Zumba and Thermo King. Altogether new clients provide more than 150,000 dealers, brokers, agents, distributors, retailers and franchisees with access to the Balihoo platform to conduct multichannel marketing campaigns customized for their local market, the company said.

“A growing number of national brands are adopting local marketing strategies to increase sales at the local point of purchase,” CEO Pete Gombert said. “Balihoo’s rapid growth is a reflection of this. We expect to see continued growth for Balihoo’s solutions as more national brands catch on to the significant impact local marketing can have on increasing revenue.”

To finance its growth, Gombert says Balihoo kicked off 2012 in January with $5 million in new funding led by OpenView Venture Partners and with the participation of Highway 12 Ventures in Boise. The funding is fueling customer acquisition, product development and employee additions.

New hires include Marty Ostermiller, senior vice president of finance and operations, formerly director of finance at Oracle; Jill Linsenberg, director of sales, East Coast, formerly vice president at Harte-Hanks; and Christina Tierney, director of human resources and recruiting, formerly human resources manager at Kiva.org.

To accommodate more employees, Balihoo added 4,419 square feet of office space, a 50 percent increase. The company is at 404 S. 8th St., Suite 300, Boise.