- New investment, led by Octopus Ventures, will be used for US expansion and R&D
- 8 out of 10 top UK publishers now using Permutive
- Company now sees 15 billion ad impressions across its platform
- Customers include BuzzFeed, Penske, The Financial Times, The Guardian, Business Insider, The Daily Telegraph, The Economist, Bell Media, NewsUK and MailOnline
London & New York: Permutive – the publisher-focused data management platform – announced it has raised $18.5 million Series B funding, led by Octopus Ventures with participation from EQT Ventures and earlier investors. The company, which works with global publishers, tripled revenue growth last year. The funding announcement comes at an unprecedented time for publishers, as web traffic continues to spike due to coronavirus yet struggles to monetize this readership persist.
The new capital will be used for international expansion, as the company continues to grow market share in North America. Permutive is also making significant hires to further enhance the experience and expertise in its senior team, including the appointments of Aly Nurmohamed to General Manager Publishing (formerly Global MD, Publisher Partnerships at Criteo); and Steve Francolla as Head of Partnerships (formerly Head of Global Publisher Strategy at LiveRamp). The company also continues to invest in research and development to help publishers monetize their data more successfully.
Founded in the UK by Joe Root (CEO) and Tim Spratt (CTO), both Entrepreneur First and Y-Combinator alumni, Permutive is rebuilding data on the edge to protect user privacy. Its first product is a SaaS data management platform that allows publishers to increase their targetable advertising and deliver significant ROI (up to 291%*). With impending US regulations and browser changes, privacy is reshaping the ad industry at the expense of the third-party cookie. Existing data cloud solutions cannot function in this world. Unlike cloud-focused data providers, by using edge computing and processing user data on device, Permutive’s technology is built for privacy, protecting publishers from any browser changes by not relying on the third-party cookie. Its SDK is now running on 350 million devices and the platform sees 15 billion ad impressions globally, which has seen a 5.5x annual increase.
Customers include BuzzFeed, Penske, The Financial Times, The Guardian, Business Insider, The Daily Telegraph, The Economist, Bell Media, News UK, and MailOnline. By harnessing edge computing, Permutive has enabled these publishers to maximize their targeted users, increase advertising yield, and grow rebooking values.
Joe Root, CEO at Permutive, said: “We’re really excited to announce this new milestone, which will help us to continue the momentum of helping publishers to understand and monetize their audiences. It’s our mission to reset advertising and to protect privacy while making data useful, and this funding will help us towards working for this goal.
“Too many organizations are blind to the huge change the advertising industry is undergoing. Yet, in just the last few years legislators have introduced privacy measures such as GDPR and CCPA, which has changed the way businesses can sort, use and store data. Coupled with this, platforms such as Firefox and Safari have excluded third-party cookies, while Google has announced Chrome will go the same way in less than two years time. However, with the right combination of privacy, trust, and scale, publishers have the opportunity to capitalize on their direct relationship with their customers and use their first-party data to help rebuild a new advertising ecosystem from the ground up.”
Commenting, Will Gibbs of Octopus Ventures said, “Octopus Ventures is thrilled to step forward and invest further into what we see as a very special business with immense potential. When we first invested, board meetings were held in kitchens and the strategy had to be agile in order to refine the product and vision. Today, Permutive is the UK category leader in its field and is beating billion-dollar global businesses on a consistent basis in trial processes. The team has hired many incredible people and is now ready to replicate the success seen in the UK in the US. Given the evolving regulatory and customer priorities, Permutive’s technology could be genuinely pioneering in its field.”
“Data has become the bedrock of the publishing and advertising industries, as the infrastructure of both has changed dramatically over the past year. Uniquely, Permutive allows organizations to build a ‘first-party’ data business. This is the new currency for online media and therefore vital for advertisers, who require trust, insights, and transparency over what they are buying. At EQT Ventures, we were seriously impressed at the value offered to some of the world’s largest media organizations by processing data on the edge instead of the cloud — a no-brainer when comparing the cost of both. It’s a pleasure to continue working with the Permutive team on their brilliant journey,” said Ali Mitchell, Partner and investment advisor at EQT Ventures.
*The Total Economic Impact (™) of Permutive’s Data Management Platform, Forrester, June 2020
About Permutive
Permutive is the data platform built for publishers.
Built on edge computing, the Permutive platform gives publishers the ability to connect their user data in one place using secure and scalable technology that does not rely on third-party cookies. The result is a significant increase in the quality and scale of data collected so that publishers can drive more revenue and decrease costs.
Working with clients across Europe and North America, publishers using Permutive include BuzzFeed, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The Economist, Condé Nast International, Hubert Burda Media, and Immediate Media.
Find out more at permutive.com
About Octopus Ventures
Octopus Ventures helps pioneers change the world. The pioneers we back dare to reimagine the future of health, money and deep tech.
With £1.3 billion* under management, Octopus Ventures is one of the largest VCs in Europe. Our typical investment is from £1 million for Seed to £10 million for Series B and we can follow our investment from a few hundred thousand right up to £25 million.
Our team is based in London and New York with Venture Partners in San Francisco, Singapore and China. The companies we back become a part of this network, with access to a formidable resource of experience and expertise.
Octopus Ventures has backed the founding teams of nearly 100 companies including Zoopla, Secret Escapes, Elvie, Depop, Sofar Sounds and Cazoo. Some of our portfolio companies have gone on to join forces with the world’s largest businesses including Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Twitter.
* As at 31 March 2020. FuM includes funds under advisory mandates and funds monitored
About EQT Ventures
EQT Ventures is a multi-stage VC fund that partners with the most ambitious and boldest founders in Europe and the US. The fund is based in Luxembourg and has investment advisors stationed in Stockholm, Amsterdam, London, San Francisco and Berlin. Fuelled by some of Europe’s most experienced company builders and scalers, EQT Ventures helps the next generation of entrepreneurs with the capital and hands on support needed to build global winners. More info: www.eqtventures.com.
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