YoungBrains is an angel investor that helps founders and their teams launch new ventures, develop products, and raise external capital. YoungBrains is a Germany-based company that was founded in 2009 by Nils Henning and Mila Sukhareva.

YoungBrains

ACTIVE is a European venture capital company focused on positively disrupting its traditional sector. Spearheaded by a diverse, passionate and multinational team, it is building a reputation for providing support that goes beyond capital for high growth businesses.  With a presence in Spain, Germany and Scandinavia, ACTIVE targets entrepreneurial teams driving digital start-ups and seeking holistic partnerships based on shared values and pro-active support. Start-up founders connect to the unique ACTIVE community to engage with sector specialists, growth experts and senior advisors.

Active Venture Partners

Iris Capital is a European VC specialized in digital, fueling entrepreneurs from early stage to growth since 1986.  From Paris, Berlin, San Francisco, Tel Aviv, Tokyo and Dubai, Iris Capital supports start-ups and scale-ups in their global expansion with the unique support on its multi corporate partners, including Orange, Publicis, Valeo and BRED. Iris Capital invests in various industries, from platforms to Saas, AdTech, IT infrastructure, cybersecurity, IoT, robotics and mobile services, and is always looking for ambitious industry disrupters led by unique entrepreneurs across the world.

IRIS

Capnamic is a venture capital firm from Berlin/Cologne doing early-stage investments in outstanding teams in Germany/Austria/Switzerland. The team’s expertise includes 70+ investments, 30+ successful trade sales and 13+ IPOs as well as broad professional experience across various industries and functions.  Capnamic unites institutional and corporate investors thus offering its portfolio companies a unique network of sparring partners and customers. The firm’s general partners are Jörg Binnenbrücker, Olaf Jacobi, and Christian Siegele.

Capnamic Ventures

Target Partners is a German venture capital firm that invests in early-stage technology companies. With 300 million Euro under management, Target Partners is one of the leading venture capital investors in Germany. The partners of Target Partners have years of collective experience as successful managers, entrepreneurs and venture capital investors in Europe and the USA. They founded or led companies their selves, developed or sold technology products their selves. They have seen numerous companies through to IPO and beyond. They understand the challenges an entrepreneur faces and that the road to success often isn't simple and straight. Both in Europe and the USA Target Partners has a large network in industry and venture capital. They open doors for you to customers, business partners, experienced managers and financial markets. They support you in business development, in international expansion, in closing OEM or distribution contracts, and in acquisition decisions. In addition, several dozen European and US entrepreneurs and top managers, as well as a number of US venture capitalists, have personally invested in their funds and thus have a particularly strong interest in your company's success.

Target Partners

Highland Europe invests in rapidly growing European internet, mobile, and software companies that address large market opportunities and have over €10 million in annualized revenues. They can provide acquisition finance or lead secondary transactions as well as making primary investments. Their capital enables management teams to accelerate growth and build a lasting, valuable business. Highland Europe was launched in 2012 and closely collaborates with Highland Capital Partners, an independent global venture capital firm with a twenty-seven year investment experience and offices in Boston and Palo Alto.

Highland Europe

Morgan Stanley Alternative Investment Partners (AIP) provides innovative alternative investment solutions across hedge funds, private equity, real estate and diversified alternatives. Our dedicated investment teams draw on a deep understanding of alternative investment strategies formed over decades of investment experience. We apply this deep understanding to bring thoughtful, opportunistic and innovative solutions to our clients.

Morgan Stanley Alternative Investment Partners

Sofina is an investment company that provides minority investments, private funds, guidance, market knowledge, networking, and investment services. They invests both directly and through Private Equity funds. They provide patient capital and advice to growing companies led by entrepreneurs and families and to support them as a long-term partner with other investors.

Sofina

Eurazeo is a private equity and venture capital firm that invests in SMEs and manages a diversified portfolio of assets. With its expertise in private equity, real estate, and private debt, the group supports companies of all sizes in their development commitment through the commitment of its 235 professionals. It provides companies with the necessary investments needed to realize their growth potential. The firm was founded in 1969 and is based in Paris, Ile-de-France, France.

Eurazeo

Elysium Venture Capital is an investment management group focused on global technology opportunities. Utilizing a wide range of industry experience, the firm seeks partnerships with exceptional management teams to commercialize innovative technologies, accelerate growth and create long term value across the world.

Elysium Venture Capital

Adjust

Adjust, an AppLovin (NASDAQ: APP) company, is trusted by marketers around the world to measure and grow their apps across platforms, from mobile to CTV and beyond. Adjust works with companies at every stage of the app marketing journey, from fast-growing digital brands to brick-and-mortar companies launching their first apps. Adjust’s powerful measurement and analytics suite provides visibility, insights and essential tools that drive better results.

<div>Founded in Germany, Adjust is a marketing analytics platform purpose-built for mobile app marketing. The platform includes many tools for 1) measuring and attributing customer activity from different marketing channels, 2) automating mobile marketing campaigns, 3) protecting customer data from fraud and bots. Adjust had 50k+ customers (by October 2021) including Soundcloud, Booking.com, Spotify, and Yelp.</div>

Using AI to automate, enhance and optimize marketing activities

Marketing Automation

<div>
 
 Founded in Germany, Adjust is a marketing analytics platform purpose-built for mobile app marketing. The platform includes many tools for 1) measuring and attributing customer activity from different marketing channels, 2) automating mobile marketing campaigns, 3) protecting customer data from fraud and bots. Adjust had 50k+ customers (by October 2021) including Soundcloud, Booking.com, Spotify, and Yelp.
 
 
 Adjust claims to be the only mobile marketing analytics platform that also includes mobile marketing automation tools for campaign optimization. Another key feature is that it provides unlimited and unrestricted access to campaign raw data, app, and partner tracking.
 
 
 Adjust was acquired in February 2021 by AppLovin, the largest technology platform for app developers, reportedly for USD 1 billion. According to analysts, the purpose of the acquisition was to deepen AppLovin&rsquo;s vertical integration and presence in the mobile marketing analytics space. 
 
 
 In October 2021, Adjust added Connect TV (CTV) and &nbsp;Over The Top (OTT) to its product offering, allowing developers to measure the ad performance of these channels on mobile apps.
 
</div>

<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&rsquo;s customers include leading news media outlets such as CNN, MSN, and Sky News, serving more than a billion monthly users (by September 2021). Outbrain also allows content publishers to amplify its reach by supplying content to the platform. As of September 2021, 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. Outbrain has made a series of acquisitions over the years while making enhancements to its product offerings. In May 2021, it tested &ldquo;QualityRatings,&rdquo; 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 April 2022, Outbrain&rsquo;s platform was 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/9907">
 integrated with ID5
 </a>
 to provide a privacy-first customer identification solution. In September 2022, the firm launched 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/13122">
 Keystone
 </a>
 , a business optimization solution for publishers. 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 it's CTV and other display ads offerings. 
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 Outbrain&rsquo;s revenue model is structured as a &ldquo;pay per click&rdquo; model with the revenue being shared with publishers of the content. In FY 2022, the firm 
 reported a revenue of USD 992.1 million (a 2% YoY dip). For the 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/16860">
 full year of 2023E,
 </a>
 the firm expected to achieve a minimum Ex-TAC gross profit of USD 237 million and generate an adjusted EBITDA of at least USD 28 million. 
 
 
 Outbrain was listed on the NASDAQ in July 2021, where it raised USD 160 million at a valuation of USD 1.25 billion. Ahead of its listing, Outbrain also raised USD 200 million in the form of senior subordinated secured notes from Baupost Group. Since then the firms share price has fallen steeply, and as of July 2022 the firm was&nbsp; worth USD 300 million, equivalent to a ~75% drop in its value. In response, Outbrain is reported to have 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/11880">
 shed ~3% of its total workforce
 </a>
 . 
 
</div>

Outbrain

<div>
 
 Marin Software is an adTech firm offering a suite of solutions for brands looking to conduct search, social media, and ecommerce advertising. The firm&rsquo;s &ldquo;MarineOne&rdquo; 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&rsquo;s commerce media platform and Instacart&rsquo;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">
 &ldquo;MarinOne Scripts,&rdquo;
 </a>
 which integrates Python scripting with its MarineOne platform, providing marketers with customized and data-driven solutions to optimize campaigns.&nbsp;
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 As of October 2021, several brands from varied industries, including Nissan, American Eagle outfitters, and Harmony, use the firm&rsquo;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. More recently, 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. 
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 Marin Software was listed on the NASDAQ in March 2013, raising USD 105 million and was valued at USD 432 million. However, since then the firm has been experiencing a decline in performance; in 2022, the firm recorded a revenue of 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/16613?industryIds=62">
 USD 20 million (a 18% YoY drop)
 </a>
 compared to the ~USD 100 million revenue in 2016. The reasons analysts cite for this are 1) weaknesses in its search advertising model and 2) not selling digital ads, which is a growth area for lead generation firms.&nbsp;
 
 
 
</div>

Marin Software

<div>
 
 Founded in China, Terminus claims to have the first account-based marketing (ABM) platform that unifies the marketing and sales teams&rsquo; roles under a single platform. Terminus specializes in B2B marketing and, according to the firm, its &ldquo;Terminus Data Studio&rdquo; has one of the largest B2B account databases, which by September 2021, covered more than 70 million businesses. Terminus&rsquo;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&rsquo; suite of analytics and attribution tools. In March 2023, the firm 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/17406">
 launched Prospect Engine,
 </a>
 a new data solution, to help users identify high-quality accounts and contacts displaying buying signals. 
 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.
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 Terminus raised USD 50 million in debt financing from CIBC innovation banking in November 2021. The funding was used to support international expansion, product development, and further acquisitions. In February 2021 when it raised USD 90 million in Series C funding, it was valued at approximately USD 400 million.
 
</div>

Terminus

<div>
 
 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 catering to 300,000+ customers across 180 countries by end December 2022. The range of services found on Brevo&rsquo;s platform includes 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 &ldquo;Conversations&rdquo;
 </a>
 to manage customer conversations across messaging channels in one centralized location.
 
 
 Brevo&rsquo;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. 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;
 
 
 Funding and financials&nbsp;
 
 
 Brevo raised USD 160 million in its Series B round in September 2020 with participation from Bridgepoint, Bpifrance, Blackrock, and Partech. The firm planned to utilize the funds to increase its presence in the US, where it has experienced a 100% YoY growth since 2018. 
 
 
 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;
 
</div>

Brevo

<div>
 
 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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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 &ldquo;Acquia Digital Commerce,&rdquo; 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">
 &ldquo;right to erasure&rdquo;
 </a>
 to bolster the privacy and security features of its platform to cater to enterprise users. 
 
 
 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 partnerships
 
 
 By September 2021, Acquia counted one in four Fortune 500 companies, including Johnson &amp; Johnson, Bayer, and Xerox, among its customers.&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&rsquo;s CDP to expand enterprise use of the platform. The integration added 100+ technology integrations compatible with Acquia&rsquo;s marketing cloud.&nbsp;
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 Acquia was acquired by Vista Equity Partners in September 2019 for USD 1 billion. 
 
 
 
</div>

Acquia

Marketing automation provides measurement and attribution solutions to measure marketing effectiveness

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

Personalization tools are mainly used in AdTech and marketing campaign automation

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

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.

Adjust

Marketing Automation

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