Y Combinator is a startup accelerator that provides funding and mentorship to early-stage companies. It offers a program where startups receive guidance from experienced entrepreneurs and investors. The organization helps founders in their business models and develop their products. Y Combinator serves industries such as technology, healthcare, and finance.

Y Combinator

1984 Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm that seeks to invest in fintech, healthcare, SaaS, e-commerce, and consumer sectors.

1984 Ventures

OpenView is an expansion stage venture firm that helps grow software companies like Instructure, Kareo, Datadog, and Expensify into market leaders. Through OpenView's Expansion Platform, they help companies hire the best talent, acquire, and retain the right customers and partner with industry leaders so they can dominate their markets. OpenView's focus on the expansion stage makes it suited to provide truly tailored operational support to their portfolio companies. OpenView Partners has adopted the Diversity Term Sheet Rider.

OpenView

Hawke Ventures is an early-stage venture fund that invests in commerce enablement, MarTech and AdTech.

Hawke Ventures

Accomplice is a seed-led venture capital firm that invests in technology startup companies. Its specialties are cybersecurity, eSports, data analytics, SMB class software, emerging hardware platforms, and marketplaces.  Through platforms like AngelList, Boston Syndicates, and Maiden Lane, Accomplice harnesses the community to empower and fund the best founders. It has pioneered a community approach through platforms like Spearhead, BOSS, Rev, and TUGG. A majority of Accomplice’s investments are in Boston, with others throughout the U.S., Canada, and the E.U. Formerly known as Atlas Venture, the firm announced in October 2014 that it was splitting its technology and life sciences franchises. The technology group was renamed Accomplice; the life sciences group retained the name Atlas Venture.  Headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Accomplice is one of the most active early-stage firms in New England.

Accomplice

Ali Capital is the personal investment vehicle of Suleman ''Suli'' Ali.

Ali Capital

Kapital Partners is a multi-stage family office based in Los Gatos, California managing investments for the Nanda Family. Kapital Partners manages direct Seed and Venture funding rounds, primarily by following institutional venture firms. The office has invested $10M to date including investments in Chegg, Wheelsup and Grove Collaborative. Investment focus areas are consumer, marketplaces, eCommerce, and enterprise software serving these sectors with an emphasis on diverse founders and mission-driven businesses.

Kapital Partners

Greylock Partners invests in entrepreneurs that focus on consumer and enterprise software companies. The firm invests in companies that define new markets, including Airbnb, AppDynamics, Apptio, Arista Networks (NYSE: ANET), Cloudera, Docker, Dropbox, Facebook (Nasdaq: FB), LinkedIn (NYSE: LNKD), Medium, Nextdoor, Palo Alto Networks (NYSE: PANW), Pandora (NYSE: P), Pure Storage, and Workday (NYSE: WDAY). It was founded in 1965 and headquartered in Menlo Park, California.

Greylock

Investing in the future of how people buy stuff.

Vinyl Capital

Elephant is a venture capital firm focused on enterprise software, consumer internet, and mobile markets.

Elephant

YC Continuity is an investment fund dedicated to supporting founders as they scale their companies.

Y Combinator Continuity Fund

We invest in Pre-Seed to Series A and our platform connects companies with LPs & Founders to fulfil requests

Beyond Capital

01 Advisors is a venture and advisory firm helping founders go from building a product to building a company. The firm was founded in 2018 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.

01 Advisors

Twilio is a developer platform for communications and is reinventing telecom by merging the worlds of cloud computing, web services, and telecommunications. With Twilio, developers, and businesses make communications more contextual by embedding voice, video, messaging, and authentication directly into applications.

Twilio

Expanding Capital is a venture capital firm focused on fast-growing US companies where can assist them in unlocking their full potential and developing new markets. It is based in San Francisco, California, USA.

Expanding Capital

Maropost Ventures is a leading private equity firm that invests in people and their companies from the earliest days through all stages of Growth. SpaceX, Compono, Pressa and Lyres make up some of their first investments.

Maropost Ventures

m]x[v Capital is a venture capital firm that focuses on early-stage B2B and SaaS investments. Bringing a founder and operator perspective to the cap table. The firm was founded in 2021 and is headquartered in New York, United States.

m]x[v Capital

Postscript

Postscript is an eCommerce SMS platform that enables brands to communicate and engage with customers through text message marketing. It allows users to easily create and manage SMS marketing campaigns with detailed analytics to improve sales and revenue. It plugs into eCommerce businesses and helps overcome declining email engagement by sending customers targeted and customizable SMS marketing.

Postscript is an SMS marketing platform specially designed for ecommerce brands that retail on Shopify; a multichannel ecommerce platform. Postscript’s platform allows brands to 1) manage and launch personalized SMS campaigns; 2) automate workflows for customer notifications, such as abandoned carts, shipping notifications, cross-selling opportunities; 3) connect to Shopify data to segment customers and create personalized customer experiences; and 4) connect with customers with 1:1 text messaging. The platform is fully compliant with the US Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and can be connected to 25 technology integrations including Klaviyo, Zendesk, and Privy.

Using AI to automate, enhance and optimize marketing activities

Marketing Automation

Postscript Launches an SMS Marketing First: On Site Opt-In

Postscript is an SMS marketing platform specially designed for ecommerce brands that retail on Shopify; a multichannel ecommerce platform. Postscript’s platform allows brands to 1) manage and launch personalized SMS campaigns; 2) automate workflows for customer notifications, such as abandoned carts, shipping notifications, cross-selling opportunities; 3) connect to Shopify data to segment customers and create personalized customer experiences; and 4) connect with customers with 1:1 text messaging. The platform is fully compliant with the US Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and can be connected to 25 technology integrations including Klaviyo, Zendesk, and Privy.By specializing exclusively in SMS marketing, the firm claims to have an edge over its competitors by being the first to introduce innovations to this space including launching a two-way conversational SMS system and is the first SMS platform enabling purchases through SMS via its Postscript Pay feature. This is reflected in its customer growth, which grew from 530 customers in December 2019 to 3,500 by March 2021 and 8,500+ by June 2022. Postscript claims that its users have on average experience a 25x ROI.Key customers and partnerships&nbsp;As of September 2024, 10,000+ Shopify stores used Postscript’s services including Brooklinen, Homesick, Native, Spikeball, and Kopari.

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

Postscript

EDGE Insights

About EDGE

Contact Us

Resources

Area of Focus

Technology Research Made Effortless