Orlando, Florida, Jan. 12, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- IZEA Worldwide, Inc. (NASDAQ: IZEA), the premier provider of influencer marketing technology, data, and services for the world’s leading brands, today announced that the company was awarded a seven-figure contract from a Fortune 100 Retailer this week. The retailer is a repeat customer who has expanded its influencer marketing spend with IZEA through 2021. The contract includes both managed services and licensing of IZEA’s BrandGraph software. The award of the new contract follows an announcement of new contracts from two Fortune 10 companies, and comes just one week after IZEA reported that its Managed Services bookings increased 48% in Q4 of 2020, as compared to Q4 2019.
These expanded agreements with existing customers, combined with a spike in new customer counts over the course of December, have driven strong managed services bookings growth in recent months. Managed services bookings in the first two weeks of January 2021 have now exceeded the total of January and February 2019 combined.
“I am incredibly proud of our team,” said Ted Murphy, IZEA’s Chairman and CEO. “When the pandemic first hit, our organization made a commitment to power through the challenges rather than pull back. We doubled down on innovation. We doubled down on marketing. We doubled down on white-glove customer service. Those efforts are now being reflected and rewarded with an expansion of bookings in our managed service business as well as an increasing customer count in our SaaS business. I appreciate the hard work of Team IZEA and their efforts to start the year with swagger and momentum.”
About IZEA Worldwide, Inc.
IZEA Worldwide, Inc. (“IZEA”) operates IZEAx, the premier online marketplace that connects marketers with content creators. IZEAx automates influencer marketing and custom content development, allowing brands and agencies to scale their marketing programs. IZEA creators include celebrities and accredited journalists. Creators are compensated for producing unique content such as long and short form text, videos, photos, status updates, and illustrations for marketers or distributing such content on behalf of marketers through their personal websites, blogs, and social media channels. Marketers receive influential content and engaging, shareable stories that drive awareness. For more information about IZEA, visit https://izea.com/.
Safe Harbor Statement
All statements in this release that are not based on historical fact are “forward-looking statements” intended to qualify for the safe harbor from liability established by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements, which are based on certain assumptions and describe our future plans, strategies and expectations, can generally be identified by the use of forward-looking terms such as “may,” “will,” “would,” “could,” “should,” “expect,” “anticipate,” “hope,” “estimate,” “believe,” “intend,” "likely," "projects," “plans,” "pursue," "strategy" or "future," or the negative of these words or other words or expressions of similar meaning. Examples of forward-looking statements include, among others, statements we make regarding expectations concerning IZEA’s ability to increase revenue and bookings, growth or maintenance of customer relationships, and expectations concerning IZEA’s business strategy. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties which could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements, as a result of various factors including, among others, the following: competitive conditions in the content and social sponsorship segment in which IZEA operates; failure to popularize one or more of the marketplace platforms of IZEA; our ability to establish effective disclosure controls and procedures and internal control over financial reporting; our ability to satisfy the requirements for continued listing of our common stock on the Nasdaq Capital Market; changing economic conditions that are less favorable than expected; and other risks and uncertainties described in IZEA’s periodic reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The forward-looking statements made in this release speak only as of the date of this release, and IZEA assumes no obligation to update any such forward-looking statements to reflect actual results or changes in expectations, except as otherwise required by law.