Clearspring Technologies’ AddThis tool is incorporated into more than nine million websites, allowing users to send links to each other by email or through social networks – while collecting data for publishers about how their content is shared, and providing targeting services to advertisers.

The company has closed a Series D funding round led by Institutional Venture Partners (IVP).

Hooman Radfar, founder and CEO of Clearspring, said the company has until now focused on helping publishers drive traffic through social sharing, and providing analytics to capitalise on that traffic. It now wants to develop new services to provide “actionable data, not just from the social web, but the entire web”.

Chairman Ted Leonsis said: “We’ve always held the view that big data would be one of the most valuable assets to come out of the social web.”

Sandy Miller, general partner at IVP, said: “Clearspring [is] in a unique position to not only take advantage of the rising demand for audience data in advertising, but also… to disrupt a number of other markets.”