Cota Capital is an SEC-registered multi-stage investment firm focused on private and public enterprise technology companies. Cota has invested in more than 100 private and public technology companies since inception. Cota’s overall Mission is to deliver impactful outcomes through principle-guided investment in modern enterprise technologies.

Cota Capital

Blackstone Credit is a privately owned hedge fund sponsor. The firm primarily provides its services to pooled investment vehicles, corporations, insurance companies, banks, pension funds, endowments, foundations, family offices, and fund of funds. It invests in the alternative investment markets of the United States. The firm primarily invests in of public and private securities employing multiple investment strategies. It focuses its investments on leveraged loans, distressed investments, special situations, capital structure arbitrage, mezzanine securities, and private equity.

Blackstone Credit

Franklin Square Group offers a range of strategic planning services to its clients, The company's range of services include strategic planning, political inroads, policy expertise, communications, and digital integration. Franklin Square Group was founded in 2008 by Matt Tanielian and is based in Washington.

Franklin Square Group

GPI Capital (''GPI'') is an alternative investment firm specializing in non-control structured and growth equity investments in technology, consumer and industrial companies primarily located in North America.  GPI seeks to serve as a value-add partner rather than own businesses, and provides customized capital solutions enabling portfolio companies to fund transformational growth, including M&A and shareholder transitions.  GPI targets late-stage growth and mature companies that have achieved scale, typically with revenues over $100 million and equity values between $500 million and $5 billion.

GPI Capital

Zeta Global

Visto is a technology company dedicated to bringing transparency, interoperability and accountability to digital advertising. The company’s Visto™ Enterprise Advertising Hub is a vendor-agnostic platform that unites the complete ad tech stack in a single user-friendly interface. Brands, media companies and agencies benefit from transparency in managing execution partners, optimizing ad spend, measuring performance and leveraging analytics to drive efficiencies and improve ROI. For more information, contact www.vistohub.com.

Zeta is a Data & Analytics company that uses a People-based Marketing Cloud to help leading brands acquire, grow and retain customers. Founded by David A. Steinberg and John Sculley (former CEO of Apple Computer and Pepsi-Cola) in 2007, Zeta uses big data, advanced analytics and machine learning to power marketing programs for hundreds of Fortune 1000 and Middle Market brands. Zeta was named one of the 50 most promising private companies by Forbes and one of 10 companies on the planet in two Gartner Magic Quadrant reports.   The Company's highly-rated technology platform competes with Oracle, IBM, Salesforce and Adobe. With over 1,000 employees worldwide, the company is headquartered in New York City, with Centers of Excellence in Silicon Valley, Boston, London, and Hyderabad, India, and 12 additional offices around the globe.

Zeta Global offers a marketing platform containing deep insights on customer behavior, which can be leveraged by firms for customer acquisition and growth via omnichannel marketing solutions. At the heart of Zeta Global’s offering is a customer data platform (CDP) that contains consumer behavioral and transactional data from proprietary sources as well as data from third-party partners and public data. This is then combined with AI to provide marketing intelligence.&nbsp;

Using AI to automate, enhance and optimize marketing activities

Marketing Automation

Zeta Global releases 'detailed' rebuttal about short report; shares jump (NYSE:ZETA)

Amazon Web Services

To enhance its Zeta Marketing Platform (ZMP) using Amazon Bedrock, a service for building and scaling generative AI applications.

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

Zeta Global offers a marketing platform containing deep insights on customer behavior, which can be leveraged by firms for customer acquisition and growth via omnichannel marketing solutions. At the heart of Zeta Global’s offering is a customer data platform (CDP) that contains consumer behavioral and transactional data from proprietary sources as well as data from third-party partners and public data. This is then combined with AI to provide marketing intelligence.&nbsp;In February 2023, the company unveiled the <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/16313">beta launch of ChatBotZeta,</a> a solution that reads and synthesizes consumer signals from Zeta's data cloud to generate conversational insights. In September 2024, Zeta Global&nbsp;unveiled&nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/34076">Zeta Media Engine,</a> a new AI-powered solution for people-based marketing.&nbsp;Zeta Global’s edge is the proprietary data it has access to, which consists of 5.4 billion unique global customer identifiers (as of September 2021). These are drawn from more than 235 million proprietary US consumer data and a further 515+ million data from individuals globally. The firm has expanded its first-party data via acquisitions, the most recent being its <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/9334">acquisition of ArcaMax</a> in March 2022, which added a further 10 million in “permissioned US identities”.&nbsp; Zeta Global also claims to be the only platform offering a single unified marketing platform that combines data with marketing automation and omnichannel marketing capabilities.Key customers and partnershipsAs of February 2023, 1,000+ customers which include one in three Fortune 100 enterprise customers had subscribed to Zeta Global’s platform.

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 <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. &nbsp;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.Key customers and partnershipsBy September 2021, Acquia counted one in four Fortune 500 companies, including Johnson &amp; Johnson, Bayer, and Xerox, among its customers. As of September 2024, the company served more than 4,000 customers globally.&nbsp;In June 2022, Acquia <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.

Acquia

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

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

Marketing automation provides measurement and attribution solutions to measure marketing effectiveness

Personalization tools are mainly used in AdTech and marketing campaign automation

ANALYST_QUICK_TAKE

PROMINENT_CATEGORY

<div>
 Zeta Global unveiled their new intelligent, connected mobile solution at Zeta Live 2024, aimed to aid marketers in creating customized, cross-channel campaigns using artificial intelligence (AI). The company is also introducing a range of new GenAI Agents to their Zeta Marketing Platform.
 This innovative mobile solution allows brands to consolidate identity across different devices and channels, predict consumer purchasing behaviour, recognise opportunities via AI, and implement goal-focussed cross-channel campaigns with the aid of the Zeta ID for identity resolution and the Zeta Opportunity Engine (ZOE) for gaining AI-based insights.
 The Zetra AI agents' portfolio consists of the RFM Reporting Agent, Audience Builder Agent, Email QA Agent, Insight Studio Agent, and Narrative Slide Agent, each one specifically designed to simplify diverse marketing tasks and enhance the success rate of campaigns.
 Incorporating these AI Agents into the Zeta Marketing Platform, Zeta asserts, could spare businesses up to 400 hours per month, equivalent to saving 16 work days.
</div> Analyst QuickTake : 
 AI agents represent the next iteration in AI advancements given the increasing focus of firms to automate and streamline their workflow processes. Zeta Global joins other marketing automation firms such as Braze which recently launched its own <a href="https: 
//sp-edge.com/updates/34074"> AI-powered agent </a> designed to help marketers create personalized customer experiences.

Zeta Global

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