• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, November 5, 2013

Social media management firm Sprinklr just completed a $17.5 million Series C funding round led by Battery Ventures and Intel Capital.
 
With the latest raise -- which brings Sprinklr's total funding to $37.5 million -- it plans to add another 100 employees within the next nine months and continue international expansion.
 
“With this round ... we will expand our sales and marketing efforts both domestically and internationally,” Sprinklr CEO Ragy Thomas told Online Media Daily on Tuesday.
 
Big brands have never been more in need of the sort of “social relationship infrastructure” that Sprinklr offers, according to Thomas.
 
“Companies around the world are increasingly recognizing that you need to build real human relationships at scale using social to thrive in the conversation economy,” he said. “Our infrastructure allows us to protect, promote and help brands drive business results by being social@scale.”
 
As a result, Sprinklr has tripled revenues over the last year, and is on target for similar growth this year, Thomas said.
 
That doesn’t mean the company doesn’t face challenges. “Right now, the biggest challenge in the market is not just the technology,” according to Thomas. “It is the organizational disruption that social brings … The enterprise now has to figure out how to work across internal silos to converse with people at scale.”
 
Sprinklr clients include Hearst Digital, Microsoft, Cisco, Intel and Virgin America.
 
Worldwide, Thomas said he expects to see businesses of various sizes increase spending on social marketing by tenfold over the next three to five years.
 
Despite continued reservations from some brands, Forrester Research has predicted that social media will have the highest cumulative aggregate growth rate across all channels through 2014.