Smartly closes a $20M growth investment round from Highland Europe.

Smartly, a Helsinki, Finland-headquartered company providing advertising solutions for Facebook, announced closing a $20M investment round.

The money comes from London-based venture capital firm Highland Europe, and will mostly (EUR 16.7M) be used for buying other shareholders out, including the employees with stock options, which account for 25% of the company.

Smartly, founded in 2013 by CEO Kristo Ovaska and Tuomo Riekki, provides a set of SAAS tools to automate and optimise online marketing budgets for the largest online businesses worldwide. The company has 160 employees and made a turnover of EUR 14M ($17M) and a profit of EUR 5.4M in 2016, expecting to double its turnover in 2017.

Smartly raised $2.7M in venture money from Lifeline Ventures in 2015.