Samos Investments is a private equity investor with a focus on high-growth European businesses.  Samos invests across a range of sectors including digital media, e-commerce, retail, financial services, energy and natural resources.  Samos takes a proactive approach with its portfolio companies, working alongside many of the US and Europe’s top venture funds, family offices and private investors.  The Samos Partners are also active angel/seed investors.

Samos Investments

Walking Ventures is a seed fund which invests in early-stage Internet and other technology startups based in Europe.  The fund is a private vehicle controlled by Tim Jackson, a leading figure in the European technology scene as a venture capitalist, entrepreneur, angel investor, commentator and technology journalist.

Walking Ventures

Craigie Capital builds, accelerates and invests in early-stage technology startups. Established in 2010, Craigie Capital has experience across finance, enterprise sales and technology. Based in central London, they have invested equity in over 30 companies across the technology scene with a particular focus on high-growth and scalable startups in the following sectors. They also support companies across the UK and across the debt funding spectrum via Rangewell.

Craigie Capital

SAATCHiNVEST is a venture capital and investment firm. The Firm makes seed and early stage investments in startup companies within the technology sector.

SAATCHiNVEST

Inventure Partners is an innovative investment fund focused on funding disruptive technology startups. The fund looks for teams with a novel approach to business models, and companies that are able to solve real problems and remove inefficiencies in the market. Inventure Partners backs a wide range of ventures across the technology industry, and the fund’s portfolio currently includes on-demand service Gett (GetTaxi), leader in US telehealth American Well, long-distance bus tickets platform Busfor, and others.

Inventure Partners

Force Over Mass Capital is an FCA regulated venture capital firm focused on early stage technology investments across UK and Europe. We invest in B2B innovation across four verticals, i.e. Fintech, Artificial Intelligence, SaaS and Industry 4.0. FOM cap operates both seed and scale-up funds to support early stage businesses through their growth journey.

Force Over Mass Capital

Summit Action Fund is an investment firm affiliated with the Summit Series community

Summit Action

Adjuvo is a bridge between high growth opportunities of the moment and a network of top tier investors with capital to invest. Adjuvo aim to invest between £1.0 and £3.0 million in early stage businesses.

Adjuvo

Octopus Ventures is a venture capital firm that offers support to companies at various stages of their journey, from idea conception to IPO. They allocate over £200 million annually to invest in sectors such as health, fintech, deep tech, consumer, and B2B software, with a focus on making a positive impact. Their experienced team assists portfolio companies in scaling rapidly. Octopus Ventures' investment philosophy extends beyond monetary support, involving time, energy, and focus to work closely with founders for success. Notable companies they have backed include ManyPets, Cazoo, Depop, Elvie, and WaveOptics. Their operations span London and New York, with a network of partners in the U.S. and Asia.

Octopus Ventures

Former Sonae IM, Bright Pixel Capital is a venture capital company with a global aim, financially driven and oriented to make businesses prosper. We have the power of transformational change across our DNA sectors: Cybersecurity, Retail Technologies, Digital Infrastructure and Emerging Technologies. Envisioned as the tech investment arm of Sonae Group, a Portuguese multinational with a diversified portfolio of innovative brands, Bright Pixel Capital has invested over 250M€ in the first 5 years in more than 50 direct investments, and will continue this path using our expertise to spot unique opportunities with the potential to change an industry. Working with Bright Pixel Capital means accessing a group of dedicated and experienced professionals, with incomparable knowledge of each investment vertical.

Bright Pixel (formerly Sonae IM)

Founded in 2008, InfraVia Capital Partners is an investment platform with more than €5bn AUM based in Paris, France. The fund has two investment arms: one dedicated to infrastructure investments, the other one to growth equity tech investments. The Growth Equity fund invests in B2B tech scale-ups, raising their Series B and following rounds.

InfraVia Capital Partners

Columbia Lake Partners their team of investors, provides growth loans to technology companies.

Columbia Lake Partners

Ometria

Ometria’s mission is to build the brain that powers all communication between retailers and their customers. Ometria helps clients leverage data to build detailed customer profiles, and make sure that all messages they send are always relevant, leading to higher engagement and increased revenues. Ometria was founded by four serial entrepreneurs, with combined experience in e-commerce, computer science, mathematics, and SaaS, has been invested in by London’s most prominent entrepreneurs and investors, and is used by top retailers in the UK, Europe, and across the world.

<div>Based in London and New York, Ometria is a customer data and experience platform (CDXP) that is specialized for retail businesses. The platform creates unified customer profiles from various touchpoints, offers AI-powered customer insights, and facilitates highly personalized cross-channel marketing to boost engagement and drive growth. Additionally, it offers Ometria's Retail Success Model as a data science tool for retail CRM growth. It employs four exclusive AI algorithms, trained on 20 billion retail customer interactions, to analyze retailer performance and optimize CRM campaigns. The platform is also integrated with marketing automation and ecommerce platforms such as Attentive, Yotpo, and ShopifyPlus, as well as agency partners Space48, Vervaunt, and Astound Commerce.&nbsp;</div>

Using AI to automate, enhance and optimize marketing activities

Marketing Automation

Ometria Welcomes Four Esteemed Marketers to Advisory Board

<div>
 
 Based in London and New York, Ometria is a customer data and experience platform (CDXP) that is specialized for retail businesses. The platform creates unified customer profiles from various touchpoints, offers AI-powered customer insights, and facilitates highly personalized cross-channel marketing to boost engagement and drive growth. Additionally, it offers Ometria's Retail Success Model as a data science tool for retail CRM growth. It employs four exclusive AI algorithms, trained on 20 billion retail customer interactions, to analyze retailer performance and optimize CRM campaigns. The platform is also integrated with marketing automation and ecommerce platforms such as Attentive, Yotpo, and ShopifyPlus, as well as agency partners Space48, Vervaunt, and Astound Commerce.&nbsp;
 
 
 The platform claims to deliver significant results, including a 22% increase in YoY repeat rates, a 56% growth in email contribution to online revenue YoY, a 17% improvement in customer lifetime value YoY, and a 50% reactivation rate in 2021.
 
 
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships&nbsp;
 
 
 As of September 2023, the firm's customers included Sephora, Steve Madden, and Hotel Chocolat.
 
 
 
 
 Funding and financials&nbsp;
 
 
 In September 2023, the company raised 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/21900">
 EUR 9.2 million (~USD 9.8 million) in growth capital
 </a>
 from CIBC Innovation Banking to support Ometria's growth and expansion plans.
 
 
 
</div>

Outbrain is an algorithm-based content recommendation and discovery platform that curates native advertising content from the open web, providing personalized content for brands to increase customer engagement. Outbrain also allows content publishers to amplify its reach by supplying content to the platform. As of September 2023, customers could access 7,000+ online content sources including content by the Washington Post, Guardian, and BBC.&nbsp;Outbrain has been a pioneer in the content recommendation space and was the first to introduce an algorithm-based content recommendation in 2008. It was also the first to introduce a self-service platform for content recommendation in 2012. In May 2021, it tested “QualityRatings,” a tool that implements quality guidelines for the content featured on its platform while using machine learning and AI to create a more personalized user experience. In September 2022, the firm launched <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/13122">Keystone</a>, a business optimization solution for publishers.&nbsp;Outbrain has made a series of acquisitions over the years while making enhancements to its product offerings. In November 2021, <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/6992">Outbrain acquired vi</a>, a contextual video intelligence platform for USD 55 million to grow its CTV and other display ads offerings. In August 2024, Outbrain acquired <a href="https://www.adexchanger.com/online-advertising/outbrain-acquires-teads-from-altice-for-1-billion/">Teads</a>, an SSP and video monetization company, to create an "end-to-end, full-funnel platform" by expanding into TV, video, and CTV advertising.&nbsp; Key customers and partnerships&nbsp;Outbrain’s customers include leading news media outlets such as CNN, MSN, and Sky News, serving more than a billion monthly users (by December 2022).&nbsp;&nbsp;In April 2022, Outbrain’s platform was <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/9907">integrated with ID5</a> to provide a privacy-first customer identification solution.

Outbrain

Marin Software is an adTech firm offering a suite of solutions for brands looking to conduct search, social media, and ecommerce advertising. The firm’s “MarineOne” solution enables Brands to integrate their data under a single platform; coupled with machine learning tools, marketers can optimize ad spending across multiple platforms. In the case of search and social media advertising, Brands can increase their visibility across a number of search engines and social media platforms including Google, Facebook, and Apple Search Ads.&nbsp;In recent years the firm has been making enhancements to transform its Marine One Software as a complete marketing campaign management &amp; intelligence solution. In line with the firm expanded its ecommerce advertising solution capabilities by increasing the number of integrations to include Criteo’s commerce media platform and Instacart’s advertising platform. In <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/12159">2022</a>, the firm rolled out a number of new product and features including 1) MarinOne bidding, the firm's ad bidding marketplace, 2) MarinOne support, to enable advertisers to improve ad performance with multi-edit ad scheduling solutions, 3) social rules engine, to help automate workflows, and 4) <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/15019">Budget Optimizer</a>, an ad budget management solution. More recently, in April 2023, the firm introduced an automation tool <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/17565">“MarinOne Scripts,”</a> which integrates Python scripting with its MarineOne platform, providing marketers with customized and data-driven solutions to optimize campaigns.&nbsp;Key customers and partnershipsAs of October 2021, several brands from varied industries, including Nissan, American Eagle outfitters, and Harmony, use the firm’s solutions.In 2021, the firm made a number of new initiatives in 2021, including an <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/7635">integration with Amazon Ads</a> and a <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/6973">partnership with CitrusAd </a>to expand the ecommerce capabilities of its platform. In January 2023, the company announced an <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/16172">integration with Yahoo</a> to broaden access to programmatic ad content.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Marin Software

Founded in China, Terminus claims to have the first account-based marketing (ABM) platform that unifies the marketing and sales teams’ roles under a single platform. Terminus specializes in B2B marketing and, according to the firm, its “Terminus Data Studio” has one of the largest B2B account databases, which by September 2021, covered more than 70 million businesses. Terminus’s customer data platform (CDP) is fully integrated with its marketing automation platform, through which teams can run multi-channel targeted campaigns across many channels including email, ad networks, live chat, and the web. This can then be analyzed with Terminus’ suite of analytics and attribution tools. By September 2021, Terminus served more than 1,000 customers, including Salesloft, Foundry, and Quantum Workplace.According to a study done by Forrester (in Q2 2020), Terminus has been recognized among the ABM platform leaders.Through a series of acquisitions, Terminus has transformed into a marketing cloud platform offering a range of services. Its two latest acquisitions took place within 12 months. In November 2020, it acquired Growflare, a lead generation and account-based intelligence platform catering to B2B startups, followed by B2B CDP Zylotech in September 2021. Terminus hoped to capitalize on these to build the most comprehensive ABM platform on the market.

Terminus

Founded in France, Brevo <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/18241">(formerly Sendinblue)</a> began as an email marketing automation platform catering to small and medium-scale businesses (SMB). It has since extended its services to become an all-in-one marketing platform; the range of services found on Brevo's platform include email and SMS marketing, customer relationship management (CRM) tools, landing page creation, and Facebook ad management, among others. In November 2022, the firm launched an <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/14388">integrated meetings solution</a> that brings together scheduling, video conferencing, and payment solutions. In March 2023, the company <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/17462">unveiled “Conversations”</a> to manage customer conversations across messaging channels in one centralized location.Brevo’s platform is compared with other well-known competitors such as Mailchimp and Hubspot and is commended for its live support and fair pricing, making it a strong contender in the SMB space.&nbsp;The company has expanded its product offering through a series of acquisitions during 2021-2022. Brevo acquired three firms in September 2021 for USD 47 million: 1) Metrilo, a provider of customer analytics and marketing services for ecommerce stores, 2) Chatra, a live chat messenger app for increasing online sales, and 3) PushOwl, a customer re-engagement website that uses web-based push notifications. In March 2022, the firm <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/9009">acquired MeetFox</a>, a meeting scheduling and video conferencing platform. In September 2022, the company <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/13360">acquired Yodel.io,</a> an Austrian cloud-based phone system provider, to enable additional customer touchpoints, and reduce the overall digital marketing spend for SMBs. More recently, in February 2023, the firm <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/16271?industryIds=62">acquired Captain Wallet,</a> a mobile wallet marketing platform, to broaden its reach internationally. In December 2023, Brevo acquired <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/24833">WonderPush and Octolis,</a> two customer interaction platforms, to expand its CRM capabilities.&nbsp;&nbsp;The firm achieved <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/15834">USD 100 million in Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR)</a> at the end of 2022 while maintaining a positive EBITDA position.&nbsp;Key customers and partnerships&nbsp;The platform catered to 500,000+ customers across 180 countries as of end December 2022.

Brevo

Acquia provides a digital experience platform (DXP) to support medium to large enterprises that use Drupal, an open-source content management system (CMS) that provides the back-end infrastructure for websites and by September 2021, powered approximately 2.1% of websites on the internet. The core product offered by Acquia is a marketing cloud that provides a full suite of services to manage the customer journey. The platform features a customer data platform (CDP), unifying data across multiple sources; sales automation tools to deliver personalized marketing campaigns across multiple delivery channels; marketing campaign management tools to manage distributed marketing teams; and a content management platform to organize and monitor content.&nbsp;Having been built on the Drupal framework, which does not require any programming skills to implement, Acquia’s marketing cloud claims to be more accessible and agile than enterprise cloud solutions provided by incumbents such as Adobe and Oracle. In 2021, Gartner’s Magic Quadrant report named Acquia a leader in DXP platforms, while a study done by Forrester (in July 2021) found that customers of Acquia’s DXP solutions experienced a payback on their investment in less than six months, generating an average return on investment (ROI) of 589% over three years.&nbsp;Acquia has made several investments and enhancements to its DXP platform. In January 2021, Acquia, in partnership with Commercetools and Lucidworks, launched “Acquia Digital Commerce,” a service for creating personalized digital shopping experiences for customers. The firm has also added a number of self-serve features to its CDP such as&nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/11422">“right to erasure”</a> to bolster the privacy and security features of its platform to cater to enterprise users. In&nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/35334">October 2024,</a> Acquia added AI capabilities to digital asset management solutions to accelerate campaign delivery.&nbsp;In September 2021, Acquia acquired Widen Enterprises, a digital asset management (DAM) and product information management (PIM) software company, for an undisclosed amount. As a result, customers can have a fully integrated experience on the platform, while the acquisition also added a further 700+ customers. In November 2023, the company acquired Monsido, a website accessibility and optimization solution from CivicPlus, to expand its platform capabilities.&nbsp;In&nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/36365">November 2024,&nbsp;</a>Acquia acquired Monsid to expand Acquia's digital experience platform capabilities.Key customers and partnershipsBy September 2021, Acquia counted one in four Fortune 500 companies, including Johnson &amp; Johnson, Bayer, and Xerox, among its customers.&nbsp;As of September 2024, the company served more than 4,000 customers globally.&nbsp;In June 2022, Acquia&nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/11352">partnered with Workato</a> (enterprise-level workflow automation platform) to integrate with Acquia’s CDP to expand enterprise use of the platform. The integration added 100+ technology integrations compatible with Acquia’s marketing cloud.&nbsp;

Acquia

Firms positioned as an 'all-in-one' marketing platform,  providing a variety of functions across the MarTech stack

Startups providing platforms for planning and managing marketing campaigns.

Startups offering tools for finding and attracting potential customers with targeted ads.

Startups providing tools to automate the execution of marketing campaigns across varied channels.

Startups providing tools for gathering, cleaning, and enhancing customer data to provide deep analytics. This also includes firms offering account-based marketing (ABM) solutions to drive targeted and personalized campaigns.

Companies that use GenAI as a core part of their product offering for marketing

Personalization tools are mainly used in AdTech and marketing campaign automation

Marketing automation provides measurement and attribution solutions to measure marketing effectiveness

Uses GenAI to automate content creation  and personalize content for marketing campaigns

Uses AI/ML to enable marketing automation, making it a core part of many companies' products

Metaverse advertising is being explored by AdTech segments for in-game advertising

The in-game advertising segment is in development and has a niche relevance to this area

Ometria

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