GovDelivery Just Hit 100 Million Users. Here's How.

GovDelivery's annual revenue is growing at an clip of 20% to 40%, and it just reached 100 million users. Who knew government information could be so compelling? (Put your hands down, #opengov nerds.)

The St. Paul, MN-based company’s software is used by over 1,000 state, local, federal and international governments to send text, email and social media blasts to its citizens on everything from which streets have been plowed to the latest toy recalls. CMO Steve Ressler (above) says hitting 100 million users is significant given that it’s government information and hovering around the same amount of people who use Pinterest. 

GovDelivery was launched by Scott Burns (above) in 2000 and is seeing revenue of $30M to $40M. The company’s technology was used to send 6 billion messages this year, so lots of data on what works and doesn’t work has been collected. Email is still the most dominant traffic driver, although text messaging is more useful for reaching underrepresented populations, says Steve. Earlier this year, the company acquired Textizen, a civic tech startup that came out of Code for America. It allows governments to use text messages as a way to communicate with constituents.

The company works with mostly US-based government agencies, along with over 100 clients in Europe—including the European Space Agency. Steve, whose firm GovLoop was acquired by GovDelivery in 2009, says the company is now focusing on communications that drive people to action. So it could be a text that tells people to stay off the roads or driving more people to become foster parents. GovDelivery, which has 250 employees, just last month opened its DC office in McPherson Square, doubling its DC footprint. The company has 65 people in DC, 15 in London, 10 in NY and five in San Fran.