Yodle

Yodle, originally named Natpal, was founded in 2005 by Nathaniel Stevens while attending The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Nathaniel then teamed up with friends Ben Rubenstein, John Berkowitz, Milind Mehere as well as one of his professors at Wharton, Dr. Kartik Hosanagar, to build the business.

While working at his father’s car dealership in Connecticut on online advertising, Nathaniel saw a gap in the local lead generation market. He came up with a system that would use a unique bidding algorithm developed to optimize online search for local businesses and drive new business leads. The system also included the ability to track the leads, in the form of phone calls and emails, so local businesses can quantify the results. Yodle made its first sale to a Philadelphia optical business in the winter of 2005.

More than 30,000 small businesses now leverage Yodle's online marketing and technology platform, which includes desktop and mobile web presence, search engine optimization, paid search across multiple desktop and mobile outlets, display advertising, review/offer management and a performance dashboard. Yodle reviews from customers that have used the company's online marketing solutions can be found on both Yodle's website and Facebook page.

Yodle also has a division called Yodle Law that specializes in building and providing online marketing solutions specifically for small and solo law firms.

Yodle was funded by JAFCO, Bessemer Venture Partners, Draper Fischer Jurvetson, and Draper Fischer Jurvetson Growth. From these investors, Yodle raised four rounds of funding from 2006 - 2010 totaling $35 million. Yodle is a profitable company. Yodle's revenue in 2011 increased by 40% over 2010.

Headquartered in New York, Yodle also has offices in Austin, TX; Charlotte, NC; Scottsdale, AZ; Atlanta, GA; and Indianapolis, IN. Yodle’s CEO is Court Cunningham who previously held positions at Community Connect and DoubleClick and has written a book on local online advertising.