A European online marketing software company raises $33 million

September 16, 2015, 1:37 PM

By Sandra Guy Senior Editor

Emarsys, which counts eBay among its clients,  sets up U.S. headquarters in Indianapolis.

Marketing software company Emarsys, based in Vienna, is expanding in the U.S.  and has received outside funding for the first time in its 15-year history with a $33 million Series A investment from Vector Capital.

“We are focused on growth,” says Sean Brady, Emarsys’ president of the Americas. The company, which sells cloud-based software to create automated digital and mobile marketing campaigns for midmarket retailers and small enterprises, employees 40 in North and South America and expects that number to grow to 200 within the next five years, Brady says. Emarsys will hire in sales, marketing, customer support, product development and professional services development, he says. The company’s U.S. headquarters is in Indianapolis, Ind.

Emarsys counts eBay Inc. as a U.S client and Toys ‘R’ Us Inc., No. 40 in the Internet Retailer 2015 Top 500 Guide, plus Canon, Superdrug and Volvo among its global customers. Brady says Emarsys has 10 to 20 U.S. clients. The software can cost anywhere from $15,000 to $100,000 annually, depending on the size of a merchant’s database, he says.

Emarsys’ software works in conjunction with a merchant’s e-commerce platform or data management system. The software uses machine learning and proprietary algorithms to analyze what online shoppers are doing on a retailer’s website and to send them automated and targeted messages via email, SMS and social media to encourage them to purchase, Brady says. “Organizations are trying to leverage technology to do the bulk of their digital marketing work without adding tens to twenties of new employees. We let the retailers make the decision of where they need to spend time, money and effort to grow their businesses.”

Another customer, U.K.-based surf and outdoor accessories retailer Surfdome, uses Emarsys’ tool to identify and target sales leads, active buyers, defecting customers and first-time purchasers, according to a case study provided by Emarsys. Surfdome’s marketing team creates loyalty campaigns to win back customers they can see exiting the e-commerce site, and create loyalty campaigns for active buyers, according to the case study. The company also run stock clearance campaigns, launch products and back-in-stock promotions and initiate cross-sell, up-sell and post-purchase programs based on information the software provides.

Brady says that Emarsys competes with Bronto Software, Silverpop IBM, Adobe, Salesforce  and Oracle Marketing Cloud.

Bronto, which in April agreed to be acquired by NetSuite Inc., is listed as the email service provider for 37 retailers in the Internet Retailer 2015 Top 500 Guide that had a combined $3.33 billion in web sales in 2014. IBM has 105 web analytics clients with $66.4 billion in yearly web sales; Adobe has 229 web analytics clients with web sales totaling $222 billion; Salesforce has 54 email marketing clients with web sales of $30.69 billion, according to Top500Guide.com data.

A European online marketing software company raises $33 million

Marketing tech startup Vidgyor raises USD 500K funding from AngelPrime

Bengaluru-based video advertisement platform for Internet TV, Vidgyor has announced the $ 500K funding round from the seed-stage venture capital fund AngelPrime. The startup enables broadcasters to monetize live TV streaming on the Internet by replacing standard TV advertisements with personalized video ads. The funding will be utilized to expand Vidgyor’s target user base, increase marketing efforts and further develop their technology.

Vidgyor was co-founded last year by Mahaboob Khan and Parth Desai who were earlier working in online video space and MNCs like Yahoo! & STMicroelectronics. The company is also one of the seven alumni of the fifth batch of startups from the Noida-based T-labs. At the moment, it has already signed up with leading broadcasters and aims to achieve a positive growth in the near future.

What the problem Vidgyor is addressing?

Currently, Internet TV features the same ads, which run on broadcast TV. Video publishers are unable to monetize live TV streams delivered over Internet, as the advertiser has not paid for showing them online. On the other hand, advertisers are unable to reach out to the online audience who prefer watching TV over Internet through a mobile device.

Vidgyor enables broadcasters and content distributors monetize live TV streams delivered over internet by auto-detecting original broadcast TV ads and replacing them with different set of targeted mid-roll ads. The organization has developed a technology platform that can effectively provide incremental revenue through deployment of mid rolls. The solution integrates with no disruption to the current digital workflow and works with any Internet connected devices – be it Desktop, Mobile, Tablets IP Set-Top Boxes etc. It also seamlessly works with any CDN, Video Player, or Encoder.

Bala Parthasarathy, Managing Partner, AngelPrime believes that personalized advertising for live TV over Internet has largely been an untapped market in the country and Vidgyor aims to address this effectively.

How does the platform benefit advertisers and users?

Vidgyor enables personalized ad targeting and provides high quality user experience to the end user. Advertisers also benefit more from this model, as they will now be able to reach out to the right audience and user base. The Vidgyor platform can integrate with any VAST compliant video ad network and also provides a dashboard to track revenue and manage campaigns in real-time. Vidgyor claims that its solution can help increase video publisher’s inventory by 5X to 10X on Live TV feeds across devices thereby increasing scope for monetization.

Vidgyor’s innovative solution has enabled IndiaTV to generate revenue from our Live TV streams. We are exploring synergies to use the solution with our global content distributors.

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Alok Soni

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Alok Soni prefers to keep his bio short owing to a dearth of creativity. Feel free to reach out to him at alok[at]yourstory[dot]com or follow on twitter @aloksoni

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Marketing tech startup Vidgyor raises USD 500K funding from AngelPrime

Custora Raises $6.5MM Series A to Integrate Predictive Customer Insights into the Marketing Cloud

       

April 07, 2015 12:33 ET | Source: Custora

NEW YORK, April 7, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — via PRWEB – Custora, a marketing software startup based in NYC, announced today the close of a $6.5MM Series A led by Foundation Capital with participation from Greycroft Partners and Valhalla Partners. The new funding will enable Custora to scale out sales and marketing and more rapidly develop the company’s B2C marketing software platform. Custora, a Y Combinator company, raised its seed round in 2011 and has been growing based on customer revenue over the past few years.

Custora provides a predictive marketing platform built for e-commerce teams. Its software analyzes data to predict how customers will behave in the future – the things they’re likely to buy, how much they’ll spend, even how often they’ll shop. These customer-specific insights enable brands to advertise and communicate in more effective and meaningful ways.

“It’s a new type of software – part predictive analytics, part B2C marketing automation,” says Corey Pierson, Co-Founder and CEO of Custora. “The goal is for marketers to spend more time thinking about how to treat their customer segments at different points in the buying cycle, and less time caught up in data analysis and list management.”

Customer data is spread across so many silos that it is a real challenge for marketers to surface meaningful insights about their customer or implement marketing campaigns that leverage those insights to drive more sales. To respond to that issue, Custora has built the first platform that aggregates data from the whole ecosystem, leverages predictive analytics to surface customer insights, then integrates those insights back into existing marketing tools – making it easier for marketers to utilize those insights in daily campaigns.

For example, Custora monitors in-store and online purchase data along with website and email engagement data and identifies specific customers who seem to be veering off their usual purchase tendencies. Then, the platform integrates with existing email marketing software to automatically trigger the appropriate “win back” email at the appropriate time.

“Custora has surfaced deep, actionable insights about various customer segments,” says Jason Wang, Senior Director of Strategic Planning and Operations at Guess?, Inc. “We have a much better grasp of our different shopper types and of our omnichannel customers – and when we’re tailoring campaigns based on those insights, it’s driving real lift.”

“It doesn’t make sense for insights and actions to be disconnected. Dashboards don’t drive revenue for marketers,” says Anamitra Banerji, partner at Foundation Capital and newest addition to Custora’s board. “Shoppers are demanding smarter, more relevant marketing campaigns. What makes sense is for software to help marketers bridge this gap.”

Though the company has yet to invest heavily in sales and marketing, they have attracted an impressive roster of customers including Ann Taylor, Guess, Reebok, Bonobos, and more. “Retailers are finding us by word of mouth because they hear our product simply works. ROI sells,” Pierson says.

About Custora

Custora provides the leading predictive marketing platform for e-commerce teams. It helps retailers acquire valuable customers and improve customer retention. The software analyzes data to predict how customers will behave in future — the things they’re likely to buy, how much they’ll spend, even how often they’ll shop. The software then integrates with existing marketing tools so marketing teams can leverage customer-specific insights to advertise and communicate in more effective and meaningful ways. Custora is proud to work with a variety of online and omnichannel retailers including LOFT, Guess?, Crocs, Bonobos, and Backcountry. Based in Manhattan, NYC, Custora is a Y Combinator company, and is backed by prominent venture capital firms and angel investors. To learn more, visit http://www.custora.com/

About Foundation Capital

Foundation Capital is dedicated to the proposition that one entrepreneur’s idea, with the right support, can become a business that changes the world. Foundation Capital has helped companies like Lending Club change the way money is lent and borrowed and Netflix revolutionize media distribution and consumption, among many others. Foundation Capital is currently invested in more than 60 high-growth ventures in the areas of consumer, information technology, software, semiconductors, and clean technology including Beepi, BoardVantage, Chegg, Coverity, DogVacay, Kik, ForgeRock, Lending Home, Simply Hired, Spoon-Rocket, Sunrun, and Venafi. Foundation Capital’s twenty-five IPOs include Lending Club, OnDeck, MobileIron, Control4, TubeMogul, Envestnet, Financial Engines, Netflix, NetZero, Responsys and Silver Spring Networks. For more information, visit foundationcapital.com.

This article was originally distributed on PRWeb. For the original version including any supplementary images or video, visit http://www.prweb.com/releases/2015/04/prweb12634817.htm

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Custora Raises $6.5MM Series A to Integrate Predictive Customer Insights into the Marketing Cloud

Skimlinks Raises $16 Million in Series-C Funding

Following the news that Amazon could be hot on its tail, content monetisation platform Skimlinks has gained $16 million in Series-C funding.

Founded in 2006, the group, which generated $625 million in sales for retailers last year, has reaped investment from the likes of Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments, Sussex Place Ventures, Greycroft and Silicon Valley Bank. Frog Capital led the round, which follows a $4.5 million Series-B coup for Skimlinks back in 2011.   

The event brings Skimlinks up to a total of $24 million in equity and will help the group fend off competition from Amazon, which recently launched an affiliate link service akin to the system offered by its would-be rival.

New competition

Skimlinks’ network in 2015 consists of 1.5 million publishers and apps, utilised by an ever-expanding pool of retailers. To date, the company has over 20,000 brands on board.

Publishers include Vox Media, Time Inc and Conde Nast, which use Skimlinks’ java script to transform regular product links included in their content into affiliate links. Sites can use the service to earn commission from retailers for every click or sale.

While the company was entering a relatively uncluttered marketplace upon its founding nine years ago, it wasn’t long until others started to take notice. 

Skimlinks is now rivalled by Viglink – launched in 2009 – and PerformanceIN reported last week that Amazon had entered the field with an affiliate link service for its online marketplace. 

Getting ahead

What the news of funding will give Skimlinks is the ability to build off a strong foundation. As Amazon tests the waters with a select group of publishers, those in charge of the purse strings at Skimlinks will be looking to expand the company in order to make it the number one solution for publishers wanting an easy introduction to affiliate marketing.

Iyad Omari, a partner at Frog Capital, is adamant of continued success for his company’s investment. 

“Publishers are increasingly turning to content-led monetization strategies for growth, as traditional digital display advertising rates continue to decline. 

“With incredibly efficient technology and deep commerce insight, Skimlinks has become the go-to content monetization partner for the world’s most prestigious digital publishers.” 

Skimlinks grew its staff count by 40% last year and opened a second American office, in New York, to alleviate some of the pressure on its San Francisco base. Despite the growing demand for its services in the US, Skimlinks’ HQ remains in London.   

Skimlinks Raises $16 Million in Series-C Funding