New Enterprise Associates is a prominent venture capital firm focusing on investments in technology and healthcare startups. They help entrepreneurs build transformational businesses across multiple stages, sectors, and geographies. With over $19 billion in cumulative committed capital since the firm’s founding in 1977, NEA invests in technology and healthcare companies at all stages in a company’s lifecycle, from the seed stage through the IPO. The firm's long track record of successful investing includes more than 210 portfolio company IPOs and more than 360 acquisitions.

New Enterprise Associates

Nexus Venture Partners is a venture capital firm that helps founders build product-focused companies. The firm actively partners with founders at inception, seed, or series-A stages and stays involved throughout the company's growth. With $2.6 billion in capital, Nexus invests mainly in enterprise software in the US and digitally-driven businesses in India.

Nexus Venture Partners

Great Oaks is an early-stage venture investment firm that invests in seed and series a investments in tech-based startups. It was founded in 2005 and is headquartered in New York.

Great Oaks Venture Capital

Storm Ventures is a $600m (TAM) VC firm 100% focused solely on early-stage enterprise investments.  We've been founders ourselves, of enterprise companies including Airespace (acquired by Cisco) and EchoSign (acquired by Adobe).  We've had to go without pay as CEOs ourselves to make payroll.  We've gone from $0 to $100m in ARR and lived all the stages in between.  We've here to help, and add some strategic capital and insights.  And not be in the way when we're not needed.

Storm Ventures

Founded in 2015, CSC Upshot Ventures is an early-stage venture fund focusing on providing seed capital to technology companies at scale. The firm seeks to invest in companies operating in the enterprise, artificial intelligence, healthcare, Fintech, and the marketplace. In close partnership with AngelList, CSC Upshot Ventures built a new model of venture investing based on the needs of founders, investors, and startup communities.

CSC Upshot

LUMA Capital Partners is a New York-based venture capital firm that offers growth capital and early stage investment services.

LUMA Capital Partners

Established in 2000 as an early-stage venture capital arm of SoftBank Group, SBVA has a storied history of empowering extraordinary entrepreneurs across the globe. In 2023, we joined forces with The Edgeof, a global startup ecosystem builder founded by Taizo Son, JP Lee, and Atsushi Taira and began our new chapter as an independent entity with a renewed commitment to fostering innovation and technological advancement.

SBVA

AI List Capital invests in AI-driven startups, most of which adopt a SaaS model.

AI List Capital

R136 Ventures is a multi-stage venture capital firm based in Woodside, California, primarily focused on enterprise SaaS, financial technology, data & analytics, cloud, artificial intelligence, machine learning, workflow automation and b2b marketplaces in the United States and Israel.

R136 Ventures

Avatar Growth Capital operates as an investment firm that focuses on growth-stage companies.

Avatar Growth Capital

Conductive Ventures invests in expansion stage companies with a focus on enterprise software and hardware. The team is led by institutional venture investors and operators with unmatched experience in the sector. Conductive Ventures focuses on deploying $100M into post-product companies with early customer success. The team works closely with its portfolio companies to deliver demonstrable revenue acceleration through targeted introductions and partnerships. Portfolio companies include Ambiq Micro, CSC Generation, Desktop Metal, and Sprinklr.

Conductive Ventures

Blueshift

Blueshift helps brands deliver relevant, connected experiences across every customer interaction. Its smart hub cdp uses patented AI technology to unify, inform, and activate the fullness of customer data across all channels and applications. It gives brands all the tools to seamlessly deliver experiences in real time across the entire customer journey.  Blueshift's platform leverages patented AI technology to integrate, enrich, and mobilize comprehensive customer data across diverse channels and applications. By achieving unified data, orchestrating omnichannel interactions, employing intelligent decision-making, and boasting unparalleled scalability, Blueshift equips brands with complete capabilities to provide personalized experiences in real-time throughout the entire customer journey.

Blueshift offers a customer data platform (CDP) providing a unified view of customer data from different channels. It uses a proprietary AI system that enables 1:1 personalization and actionable customer insights for marketing teams. In addition, the platform provides a full suite of tools including 1) audience segmentation, 2) automating customer journeys, and 3) conducting A/B and holdout testing. The platform also has 70+ technology integrations including Adobe advertising cloud, Attentive, and Salesforce. In August 2022, the firm launched <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/12824">100+ pre-built AI recommendation recipes</a> for marketers to create hyper-personalized customer experiences.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

Using AI to automate, enhance and optimize marketing activities

Marketing Automation

Blueshift Selected by RCS MediaGroup to Revolutionize Multi-Channel Customer Engagement

Amazon Web Services

Blueshift collaborates with Amazon Bedrock, leveraging Amazon Titan Multimodal Embeddings to enhance recommendation relevance in dynamic product catalogs.

Blueshift offers a customer data platform (CDP) providing a unified view of customer data from different channels. It uses a proprietary AI system that enables 1:1 personalization and actionable customer insights for marketing teams. In addition, the platform provides a full suite of tools including 1) audience segmentation, 2) automating customer journeys, and 3) conducting A/B and holdout testing. The platform also has 70+ technology integrations including Adobe advertising cloud, Attentive, and Salesforce. In August 2022, the firm launched <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/12824">100+ pre-built AI recommendation recipes</a> for marketers to create hyper-personalized customer experiences.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Blueshift’s platform goes beyond a traditional CDP platform as it connects customer data with its full suite of campaign management platform (CMP) tools, providing visibility on customer data at every stage of the marketing journey, and thus, making it a complete marketing cloud solution. The firm claims that users of its recommendation studio have experienced 131% higher sales and 384% higher lead volumes.&nbsp;In 2020, Deloitte’s Technology Fast 500 identified Blueshift amongst the fastest-growing firms in North America, recording revenue growth of 858% (2016–2019). The company claims that using automation for campaigns results in a 61% higher click-through rate and a 166% higher conversion rate for messages with automated AI recommendations.Key customers and partnershipsAs of November 2022, Bluseshift’s clients included Paypal, Groupon, Carparts.com, lendingtree, and BBC. In August 2022, the firm <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/12825">partnered with Sinch</a>, a cloud communication platform to launch a two-way conversational experience to enable businesses to launch conversational marketing experiences.

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

ANALYST_QUICK_TAKE

PROMINENT_CATEGORY

<div>
 Blueshift, a Customer Data Platform (CDP) and cross-channel marketing solution, introduces its new Shopify App Integration and ecommerce Accelerator Plan. This integration enables Shopify users to synchronize customer data with the AI-driven platform of Blueshift.
 The Accelerator Plan, specifically targeted at ecommerce brands, provides a set of marketing tools designed to enable businesses to launch in 30 days with nine automated campaigns and nine pre-configured recipes for prominent events. Included in the plan are features such as cart abandonment recovery, follow-up mechanisms, and personalized product suggestions, all leveraging the AI capabilities of Blueshift.
</div> Analyst QuickTake : 
 Blueshift's recent emphasis on AI-powered personalization positions it well in the competitive ecommerce marketing solutions market. It will contend with firms like <a href="https: 
//help.activecampaign.com/hc/en-us/categories/6517436273436-Ecommerce"> ActiveCampaign, </a> which focuses on email marketing automation and personalized customer journeys, and <a href="https: 
//sp-edge.com/updates/30565"> Bloomreach, </a> which has partnered with SCAYLE to improve ecommerce personalization through omnichannel customer journeys.

Blueshift

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