Influ2, the first person-based advertising platform, announced its initial round of seed funding of $3.4 million, which is the largest round of seed funding secured in the history of account-based marketing (ABM). Co-founded by Dmitri Lisitski, chief executive officer, and Vladimir Mikhalko, chief technology officer, Influ2 offers account-based advertising solutions that empower B2B marketers to only show their ads to chosen decision makers on an individualized basis.
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This round of funding signifies Influ2’s commitment to person-based marketing solutions and the future of advertising. One of the biggest challenges that marketers often face is that they don’t know who is clicking on their ads, so the amount of clicks doesn’t convert into leads. Also, the ad experience can be annoying and disruptive, and doesn’t consider the person who is receiving the ad. So, the result is being ignored, deleted, overlooked and losing leads.
That’s why Influ2’s unique advertising platform identifies every ad visitor and takes into account the actual person who specifically clicked on the ad, how many times they interacted with the content of the ad and the time of which they engaged with the ad. This not only helps marketers identify interested decision-makers, but also allows them to develop more thoughtful and engaging ads that result in 4-7xs increased leads.
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“With Influ2 I saw an opportunity to take a smarter approach to marketing. One that considers the person who is receiving the ad, and that’s the whole concept behind person-based marketing. It doesn’t replace or erase the concept of account-based marketing, it enhances it,” said Dmitri Lisitski. “And our rapid growth this past year shows that enterprises are eager to integrate this approach into their overall marketing strategies – especially since the traditional approaches to marketing, such as trade shows, are no longer available. Marketers have been more willing to innovate and embrace new trends, and person-based advertising is at the forefront of that.”
The round of funding was led by Boston fund One Way Ventures and Athens-based VentureFriends, as well as notable investors like super angel Murat Abdurakhamanov and Peter Harrison, former CEO of GlobalLogic. With over 57 clients globally, spanning Fortune 500 B2B enterprises such as Cato Networks, Hexaware, NVIDIA and high-tech MLEs, Influ2 plans to use this funding to expand its functionalities, bring in senior sales hires and to grow its client base in the healthcare and IT verticals.
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