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

Astral Capital is an investor in emerging tech companies, healthcare, AR, B2B, and Ed-Tech.   In a world where most software products can be built and launched in a matter of months, Astral Capital focuses on Founder-owned businesses that have figured out how to grow aggressively without raising tons of equity.   Jon Karlen founded Astral Capital in 2016 based on his conviction - from 10 years as a venture capitalist - that the best way to build software businesses is on the backs of happy customers.

Astral Capital

Summit Partners is an investment firm that is currently investing in to growth equity, fixed income, and public equity opportunities. Summit has invested in more than 460 companies in technology, healthcare, life sciences, and other growth industries. Summit Partners enhances the value of these companies through infrastructure development, executive and board recruiting, and strategic and operational advice. The firm also brings extensive experience in helping companies navigate the complex process of public offerings or strategic sales and mergers.

Summit Partners

Accel is an early and growth-stage venture capital firm that powers a global community of entrepreneurs. Accel backs entrepreneurs who have what it takes to build a business.  Accel’s vision for entrepreneurship and business enables it to identify and invest in the companies that will be responsible for the growth of next-generation industries. Accel-backed companies include Atlassian, Braintree, Cloudera, DJI, Dropbox, Dropcam, Etsy, Facebook, Flipkart, Lookout Security, MoPub, Qualtrics, Slack, Spotify, Supercell, Vox Media, and others.

Accel

Sands Capital is an active, long-term investor in innovative growth businesses. The approach combines rigorous fundamental analysis with inspired thinking to seek out businesses that are creating the future. They operate through two affiliates: Sands Capital Management, which focuses on investing in companies in the public market, and Sands Capital Ventures, which focuses on investing in companies in the private market. By enabling clients to participate in the growth of these businesses, its mission is to add value and enhance their wealth with prudence over time.

Sands Capital Ventures

Lone Pine Capital is an investment adviser that invests in equities and equity-related securities. It focuses on developing an investment platform that distils global, cross-sector idiosyncratic, and thematic research into concentrated portfolios in public or private markets. Stephen Mandel Jr., the low-key president and founder of Greenwich, Connecticutâ€“based Lone Pine Capital, returns a paltry 166 hits. Buying Google shares, however, has generated huge returns for many hedge fund managers, including Mandel.

Lone Pine Capital

Glynn Capital Management focuses on investing in leading private and public technology growth companies. Glynn Capital Management seeks to be long-term investors in a limited number of excellent companies with management teams, sustainable business models, and long-term growth potential.

Glynn Capital Management

Focused on Quality. Guided by Fundamentals. At ClearBridge Investments, our equity strategies all start with the same fundamental principle: the key to long-term success is selecting high-quality companies through rigorous research and analysis.  Introduced by Legg Mason, Inc. in 2005, ClearBridge Investments traces its asset management strengths back over 45 years to a number of prominent and well-established firms that have made meaningful contributions to our modern-day culture and investment philosophy.

ClearBridge Investments

Owl Rock aims to meet the distinct and underserved financing needs of middle-market companies through tailored “one-stop” financing solutions across the capital structure. Its seasoned executives’ experience in designing and funding custom solutions positions us as a desirable lending partner to middle-market companies and their sponsors. It deploys capital through Owl Rock Capital Corporation, which has elected to be treated as a business development company under the Investment Company Act of 1940, as amended. Owl Rock Capital Corporation will originate, underwrite and invest in senior secured or unsecured loans, subordinated loans or mezzanine loans and, to a lesser extent, equity-related securities and warrants. Owl Rock Capital Advisors, a SEC-registered investment adviser, manages Owl Rock Capital Corporation.

Owl Rock Capital

Whale Rock Capital Management is an investment firm that focuses on the technology, media, and telecom sectors. The firm was established in 2006 and is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, United States.

Whale Rock Capital Management

Counterpoint Global is one of Morgan Stanley's fundamental equity teams that aims to make long-term investments in unique companies. The culture of the team promotes collaboration, creativity, ongoing development, and differentiated thinking. Company portfolios are normally concentrated and differentiated from their benchmarks. Counterpoint Global is made up of 35 individuals, including 18 investment professionals and two disruptive change researchers.

Counterpoint Global

Klaviyo

Klaviyo is a marketing automation and email platform designed to help grow businesses. From personalized newsletters to automated emails like abandoned carts, order follow-ups, and personalized thank you's, Klaviyo makes it easy for stores to set up email marketing without the need for expensive systems and lots of people. It integrates natively with customer data sources and builds the technology to house data at scale, creates experiences across channels, and measures the results.

Klaviyo operates an email and SMS marketing platform that is targeted at ecommerce brands of all sizes. The features of the platform include: 1) a customer data platform (CDP) providing a unified view of customers, 2) tools to segment and track customers and provide predictions on customer action, 3) personalize and automate email, SMS and social media marketing campaigns, and 4) customizable flow and campaign analytics.&nbsp;

Using AI to automate, enhance and optimize marketing activities

Marketing Automation

Daily Harvest Invests in Industry-Leading Tech Stack with Shopify, Ordergroove and Klaviyo to Power Future Growth and Innovative Customer Experience

Amazon

Klaviyo has announced a new integration with Amazon's Buy with Prime and this integration allows Klaviyo users to synchronize their Buy with Prime order and customer data with their Klaviyo account.

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.

Klaviyo operates an email and SMS marketing platform that is targeted at ecommerce brands of all sizes. The features of the platform include: 1) a customer data platform (CDP) providing a unified view of customers, 2) tools to segment and track customers and provide predictions on customer action, 3) personalize and automate email, SMS and social media marketing campaigns, and 4) customizable flow and campaign analytics.&nbsp;The platform’s competitive edge is in its large partner ecosystem which includes 200+ technology integrations including with ecommerce sites such as Shopify, Magento, and <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/11227">BigCommerce</a>, which are fully synced with Klaviyo’s platform avoiding the need for additional software development. Klaviyo also stands out with its in-house customer data solution, leveraging customer data at every stage of the marketing process.In June 2023, the firm launched <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/19412">Klaviyo for Wellness,</a> a marketing solution specifically designed for fitness studios, salons, and other client-based wellness services. During the same month, the firm launched <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/19780">Klaviyo reviews,</a> a feature that enables Shopify merchants to collect product reviews within Klaviyo's platform.Key customers and partnershipsAs of April 2023, Klaviyo had more than 265,000 customers, including Huckberry, NOMAD, and Chubbies.

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

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.

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

PROMINENT_CATEGORY

<div>
 Klaviyo, an email and SMS marketing platform for ecommerce brands, launched a new collection of AI-driven tools and features known as Klaviyo AI.
 The aim of Klaviyo AI is to utilize AI insights and messaging, including personalized product recommendations, to engage customers at appropriate times effectively. It leverages GenAI and other AI technologies to curate content and deliver it to the target audience. Klaviyo AI's prominent features encompass Segments AI, Email AI, SMS AI, and Forms AI. These features are designed to generate intricate audience segments, develop on-brand emails, create SMS campaigns, and optimize web forms to enhance conversion.
</div>

Klaviyo

EDGE Insights

About EDGE

Contact Us

Resources

Area of Focus

Technology Research Made Effortless