London start-up uses big data to cut un-targeted online ads and cold calling
London: Growth Intelligence (‘Gi’), a company which crunches web-scale data to predict who your next clients will be, has raised $3.4m to invest in hiring data scientists and engineers.
Google, BT, Lloyds Banking Group and American Express all use Gi to identify companies to target in advance, driving up marketing performance and revenue. Gi’s software as a service (SaaS) platform uses machine learning with big data on millions of firms to predict which businesses will respond to a marketing approach.
Backers include 83 North (formerly Greylock Israel), MMC Ventures, Paul Forster, founder of Indeed.com (sold in 2012 for $1Bn) and early Google employee and chief economist Hal Varian, together with John Taysom, an early investor in Yahoo! and 18 other subsequent IPOs.
As well as new staff, Gi plans to use its first investment round to boost client ROI and support algorithm development as it seeks to build on strong early revenue growth. Alan Morgan from MMC and Paul Forster will join the board.
Tom Gatten, founder and CEO said: “This investment is an exciting milestone for Growth Intelligence and will enable us to further develop our Predictive Marketing platform. Being able to predict whether a deal will close before you contact a prospect dramatically increases the efficiency of our clients’ marketing. We’re proud to be taking Predictive Marketing to the world with such a distinguished team around us.”
Simon Menashy at MMC Ventures says: “This sort of predictive technology is a whole new concept for the marketing industry and it’s already winning over some impressive customers. MMC backs ambitious entrepreneurs and potential market leaders, we’re excited to be working with Gi.”
Laurel Bowden, Partner at 83North comments: “I’m backing Gi because I believe Predictive Marketing will be an exciting space in the future and Gi are well placed to exploit this. I’ve been impressed by the results Gi has driven at clients from a wide range of sectors. The future is bright for Gi.”
Paul Forster concludes: “Gi has all the ingredients for success: a big market – ultimately all B2B firms; a brand new business application in Predictive Marketing, harnessing artificial intelligence to drive measurable ROI growth for its clients.”
About Growth Intelligence
Growth Intelligence is a pioneer of Predictive Marketing – a new technology that powers marketing at B2B businesses. The tool boosts conversion rate from telemarketing, online advertising and outbound email. Customers sync their previous wins and losses with the platform and it predicts who their next clients will be using open source-gathered Big Data and artificial intelligence. Growth Intel is working with major companies, delivering substantial increases in marketing ROI.
A decade ago, CRM tools like Salesforce made it easy to see which sales leads were going to close, later Marketing Automation software like Marketo and Hubspot made it possible to predict which marketing prospects would purchase using engagement data, Gi completes the picture by allowing CMOs and Sales Directors to know the real-time probability that any arbitrary company from the universe of global businesses will buy, whether or not they’ve engaged before.
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About MMC Ventures
Founded in 2000, MMC Ventures is an active investor and award-winning venture fund manager, focused on technology-enabled sectors where the UK is a world leader – particularly financial and business services, business software, digital media and e-commerce. With over £125 million under management, and investing circa £20 million annually, MMC was ranked as one of most active early-stage UK investors for 2012, 2013 and 2014.
MMC’s existing portfolio includes Boticca, Gousto, iJento, Interactive Investor, Love Home Swap, Masabi, NewVoiceMedia, Pact, Reevoo, Safeguard, Small World, Somo, TotalMobile, and Tyres on the Drive.
@MMC_Ventures
About 83 North
83North, formerly Greylock IL, is a global venture capital firm with more than $550 million under management. The fund announced a new $200 million fund last month and spun off from the Greylock brand at the same time.
With offices in London and in Herzliya, Israel, the fund focuses on investments in Israeli and European startups. Greylock IL was formed as a Greylock Partners affiliate in 2006.
The fund has invested in 30 companies previously including online takeaway service Just Eat PLC which floated on the London Stock Exchange last April, now trading with a market capitalization of £1.8 billion. The fund also invested in logistics software maker Hybris AG, bought by SAP SE for over $1 billion in 2013, AeroScout (acquired by Stanley Black & Decker), ScaleIO (acquired by EMC), iZettle AB which was valued at about 200 million euros in its last funding round, SocialPoint, Supersonic, Telit and Zerto.
