Singapore-based Insider, a profitable SaaS company that takes a unique approach to Multichannel Experience Orchestration, announced today its $32 million Series C funding round, bringing total funding to date to $47M. The round was led by Riverwood Capital and was joined by Sequoia, Wamda, and Endeavor Catalyst. The additional capital will be used to further enhance the award-winning platform’s capabilities, add top-tier engineers to Insider’s exceptional R&D team, and invest in the company’s global sales and marketing efforts.
Most digital marketers face the same problem: there are too many tools that claim to be “multichannel” and provide a “hub”. Instead, it is the case that customer data sits in silos, sales channels remain under-developed or even unavailable, and the end product is a point-solution rather than a true hub. This creates disjointed experiences for consumers and hinders marketing ROI.
Insider’s AI-powered platform enables enterprise marketers to connect customer data across channels and systems, predict their future behavior with an AI–powered intent engine, and orchestrate and deliver individualized experiences to customers. Their platform is unique in how it offers the widest set of product features in the market while coordinating all offline and online data across the unified platform and its various engagement channels. The powerful AI intent engine consists of 15+ algorithms that enable marketers to make precise predictions such as which customer segments are likely to convert, buy, and churn — and then design the most optimized experiences accordingly.
Insider’s channel integrations take minutes, not months — reducing dependency on internal IT teams. Ultimately, Insider enables digital marketers to drive growth across channels, and throughout the funnel from acquisition to activation, revenue and retention (AARR) — thereby impacting ROI metrics such as conversion rate, CAC, LTV, and average order value.
Insider is trusted by more than 800 global enterprise brands, including industry powerhouses such as UNIQLO, Singapore Airlines, Marks & Spencer, Estée Lauder, Virgin, Samsung, Carrefour, Dominos, Toyota, Newsweek, Avon, MediaMarkt, AVIS, Allianz, BBVA, IKEA and CNN. With teams on the ground in 24 countries, Insider ensures deep localization and unparalleled support for their clients.
Insider CEO and Co-founder Hande Cilingir explained that as a profitable company they did not want to raise capital too soon but continued to receive strong inbound interest from VCs.
“We’ve only raised capital when we felt that we were ready to raise the bar to a whole new level. A self-imposed scarcity always made us more creative, more resourceful and more aggressive in reaching our goals,” she added.
“So far, we’ve focused on leading in high-potential markets in the Eastern part of the world. We’ve partnered with industry powerhouses like Samsung, UNIQLO, and Singapore Airlines in APAC as well as Qantas in Australia, and Marks & Spencer, Estee Lauder, and Carrefour in Europe. We plan to grow substantially in our existing 24 countries and we are now ready to enter the US market and believe that our fresh solutions to marketers’ biggest pain points will be a major differentiator,” added Cilingir.
“We saw something that is extraordinary in Insider’s core technology and the engineering powerhouse that develops it. Insider’s industry-leading intelligence team has created AI-backed predictive segmentation, which can derive inferred customer profiles, for any industry, in less than 2 weeks” said Vice President at Riverwood Capital, Joe De Pinho, who is joining Insider’s board.
The beginning of the pandemic saw a rapid surge in demand for eCommerce and Media companies worldwide. Insider’s agile digital sales team was well-positioned to turn this increasing traffic into conversions by helping their partners respond to ‘net new digital behaviors’ in real time. In the post-Covid market, brands will need to digitize more than ever. As online consumption increases and shoppers start reprioritizing their postponed purchases, Insider expects to continue its accelerated levels of growth.
“Great companies become amazing companies during times of crisis, and Insider is definitely one of them. In the marketing software space, everyone claims that they are “multichannel” or “all-in-one,” yet most of those platforms are not fully comprehensive and solution-oriented. Insider, leveraging its unique culture and its focus on customer intimacy, brings a fresh approach in building a truly multichannel next-generation platform, as recently validated by their position on the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Multichannel Marketing Hubs 2020.” said Francisco Alvarez-Demalde, Co-founder & Managing Partner at Riverwood Capital.
Insider has been recently featured in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Multichannel Marketing Hubs 2020 and became the #1 leader on G2Crowd’s Mobile Marketing Software Grid with a 4.7/5 rating based on 100% user reviews, 14 quarters in a row. Insider’s Co-founder and CEO Hande Cilingir was selected as one of the top women CEOs outside of the US by Crunchbase.
“We liked the Insider team from the first days, but have been positively surprised by their highly efficient go-to-market engine. The quality of customer interactions, combined with exceptional product and technology, has enabled Insider to stand out among the many point-solutions out there — and build up a very impressive list of customer logos,” said Pieter Kemps, Principal, Sequoia Capital (India) Singapore.
“Technology on its own is never enough to make top brands your loyal fans. The culture and the tight-knit community Insider has built and then been able to scale up globally is nothing like what we’ve come across before. The level of commitment and care they have for the brands they partner with is what makes the Insider team truly unique,” said Linda Rottenberg, Co-founder, and CEO of Endeavor. Earlier this year, Insider was once again selected to the Endeavor Outliers Program, recognizing the most outstanding Endeavor Entrepreneurs leading the fastest-growing companies around the world.
