Snap has announced two new UK Snap Originals “What the Aitch” in collaboration with Future Studios, and “Secret Superpowers with Tom Daley”, in collaboration with Little Dot Studios, that will premiere later this year and early 2023 exclusively on Snapchat. These two series are the latest expansion of Snap Originals globally – following the first UK Snap Original announcement in October 2021, “A Fighting Chance with Anthony Joshua.”
Media and insights platform Hawk and audience data specialists Skyrise Intelligence are to deepen their partnership as Hawk ramps up the CTV element of its cross-channel offering. Hawk is the only fully multi-channel demand-side platform (DSP) to work in partnership with Skyrise, providing brands and agencies with access to extensive consumer insight that can be targeted across all advertising channels. Hawk is also the only platform on the market to integrate Skyrise data into CTV buying, a move that allows it to control, shape and deliver CTV campaigns to the most relevant audiences in real-time.
Gismart, a global developer and publisher of mobile apps and games, has announced that it will be shifting to a “remote first” working culture. Starting from June the company will provide its employees with full flexibility to work from any remote location and continue to open up new company hubs in Europe at the convenience of their employees who wish to work from the office rather than home. The company is set to open multiple hubs at new locations with 10+ employees or at the request of the employees in cases where the number of employees is fewer.
Taboola has announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Gravity R&D, a personalization technology company founded in data science. Gravity R&D’s core offering, Yusp, is used by leaders in retail, e-commerce, and digital media to provide personalized offers to customers to drive sales, increase average order sizes, build customer loyalty and create more positive user experiences. Yusp’s technology is built on proprietary algorithms that focus on deep learning for personalization – coupling contextual data and brands’ first-party data to make recommendations for shoppers. As part of the pending acquisition, Taboola will create and invest in a new research and development hub in Gravity R&D’s headquarters in Hungary. The acquisition is part of Taboola’s stated goal of investing $100 million annually into R&D.
Puma, the multinational sports equipment and apparel corporation, has chosen parcelLab – the Operations Experience Management platform – to enhance its customers’ post-purchase experience and drive sales by delivering personalised and proactive communications across 26 countries. Puma will be using parcelLab’s service to provide their customer with branded, personalised, and transparent communications. This will improve the end-to-end user experience and provide a memorable purchase that leaves a lasting positive image. This partnership will be pivotal in advancing Puma’s ambition of a more direct and digitally enabled strategy – helping to fuel Puma’s rapid growth.
Google Shopping ecommerce marketing platform Bidnamic has completed a £4 million ($5 million) Series A funding round led by Gresham House Ventures, a growth equity investor specialising in software and digitally-driven businesses in the consumer, healthcare and service sectors. This marks Bidnamic’s first institutional investment, which is also bolstered by existing angel investors, including some of the biggest names in ecommerce and technology such as Marin Mayer, co-founder of Booking.com; Chris Forrest, board advisor to Net-A-Porter; and Luke Judge, former CEO of leading performance marketing agency Incubeta, all of whom continue to champion Bidnamic’s significant growth potential. The investment will accelerate the already rapid growth Bidnamic has achieved by fuelling R&D projects and expansion into the US market.
Website intelligence platform Deepcrawl is launching its newest enterprise-grade solution for technical SEO and website health insights, Monitor Hub. For large enterprise websites, multi-brand businesses with numerous domains, and agencies managing multiple client websites, effectively managing technical SEO and website health at scale poses significant operational difficulties. With the addition of Monitor Hub, the Deepcrawl platform solves an array of challenges relating to multi-site and large-scale technical SEO management by providing a centralized command centre, collated trend tracking across multiple domains or projects, and customizable alerts.
InfoSum, the data collaboration platform, and Adform, the only global, independent, and fully integrated advertising platform built for modern marketing, have announced their global partnership. The collaboration between InfoSum and Adform empowers companies to fully leverage all data and identifiers in the ad tech ecosystem without compromising on security and privacy. The integration of Adform Flow and InfoSum’s Data Collaboration Platform enables advertisers to match their first-party data with the media owners’ audiences and build highly relevant audience segments.
Hootsuite is proud to announce it has joined the Content Marketing speciality within TikTok’s Marketing Partner Programme, an initiative that makes it easier for marketers to scale their content on TikTok. As an official badged partner, Hootsuite has launched an integration that enables its customers to effectively manage, execute and optimise their TikTok content alongside their other platforms, from one integrated tool. To empower businesses to explore the vast potential of this immersive platform and ease the transition for marketers looking to scale content creation, Hootsuite will be guiding its customers through this integration, one step at a time. Hootsuite will be helping its customers become creatively courageous on TikTok by launching a full suite of educational resources.
Kong Inc., the cloud connectivity company, opened a new London office at 1 Poultry as part of its rapid expansion in the UK and Europe. Kong opened the new location after seeing record growth in the UK, with a current headcount of more than 55 employees in the UK and more than 450 employees worldwide. The company has seen rapidly increasing demand for its API platform, particularly from the financial services, e-commerce and government sectors – nearly doubling its UK customer base over the past year.
Cloudflare, Inc., the security, performance, and reliability company helping to build a better Internet, has announced it has joined the EU Cloud of Code of Conduct (EU Cloud CoC) General Assembly, to help increase the impact of the trusted ecosystem and encourage more organizations to adopt GDPR-compliant cloud services. Cloudflare also announces that it has achieved two new cloud security certifications: ISO/IEC 27018:2019 and C5 – Cloud Computing Compliance Criteria Catalog – introduced by the Federal Office for Information Security in Germany.
Infinity, the call intelligence provider, has announced a new partnership with Automotive Transformation Group, a provider of automotive solutions. The alliance will give their extensive customer base of both vehicle manufacturers and retailers the option of using Infinity’s class-leading call intelligence technology, for full end-to-end visibility on marketing campaigns, and marks the next phase in the latter’s expansion in the huge growth sector. Through keyword identification and detailed analysis of a user’s landing page, Infinity’s call intelligence technology will pinpoint the channels that consumers have travelled from, and which web pages generated call interest. With a fully integrated approach, also connecting offline and digital activity through trackable phone numbers, the platform will provide the insights needed to optimise dealerships’ marketing strategies and associated costs for specific products. The partnership also opens up the opportunity for users to receive secure analysis of in-call content via Infinity’s Conversation Analytics tool, using speech recognition and machine-learning technology to optimise phone calls and maximise revenues. And with the recent launch of Infinity’s ‘Agent ID’ and outbound call tracking capabilities, contact centres can have an enhanced means of training agents.
WSO2 has announced that the company has completed its Series E funding round with the addition of RedStart Labs (India), a subsidiary of Info Edge Limited. The move brings the total growth capital raised to $93 million. Info Edge joins lead investor Goldman Sachs Asset Management Private Credit, which completed the first tranche of the Series E in November 2021. Info Edge, through its RedStart subsidiary, will contribute strategically to WSO2’s accelerated business expansion across India.
UiPath, an enterprise automation software company, has announced it has integrated its automation platform with digital document generation and e-signature capabilities from Adobe. By integrating with Adobe Document Services and Adobe Acrobat Sign to help customers automate end-to-end document processes, UiPath can boost employee productivity, enhance digital customer experiences, and lower costs through seamless, uninterrupted digital document workflows.
ProtonMail, the Swiss company behind the world’s largest encrypted email service, has announced that it has rebranded as Proton, bringing together its flagship service Proton Mail with Proton VPN, Proton Calendar, and Proton Drive under a newly unified privacy-by-default ecosystem with updated logos, apps, and a new website. The ground-up redesign reflects Proton’s ambition to create the world’s first privacy ecosystem, with a consistent brand identity and user experience across all products. Unveiling more than just a new logo and font, the company’s rebrand offers users a unique, cohesive, and comprehensive privacy solution for daily online life. The new website, updated web and mobile apps, unified subscription plans, and simplified user interface all signal Proton’s commitment to transform “privacy” from a niche concern for a few to a mainstream norm accessible to many.
DoiT International (DoiT), a global multi-cloud software and managed service provider (MSP), has announced it has attained Premier Partner status in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Partner Network (APN). Achieving APN Premier Partner status differentiates DoiT as an AWS Partner who demonstrated expertise and notable success in helping customers design, architect, build, migrate and manage their workloads on AWS. To gain AWS Premier Partner status, companies must complete a rigorous approval process through accreditations and certifications as well as demonstrate a long-term investment in their relationship with AWS. Partners must possess extensive expertise in deploying customer solutions on AWS. AWS Premier Partners also have a strong team of AWS Trained & Certified technical consultants and have deep expertise in project management and professional services.
GumGum, a contextual-first global digital advertising platform, announced a partnership with OTT streaming service provider Invincible Entertainment, signalling a unique collaboration aimed at delivering a new calibre of ad experiences in the fast-moving CTV space. The partnership will combine GumGum’s In-Video product with Invincible’s vast catalogue of CTV inventory across its O&O FAST Networks and flagship streaming television platform Galxy TV, allowing opportunities to maximise video revenue with an innovative and user-friendly solution.
SeenThis, a technology company offering innovative streaming solutions, and impact tech company Doconomy has partnered to drive innovation for quantification and reduction of data-waste, i.e., unnecessary data transfer that is not needed for the user experience. The collaboration starts with addressing CO2 emissions linked to internet publishing and advertising data transfer, a global multi-billion dollar business
disguise, the visual storytelling platform and market leader for extended reality (xR) solutions has launched its Metaverse Solutions division to enable the next generation of extraordinary live, virtual production and audiovisual location-based experiences for the metaverse. disguise Metaverse Solutions will build on already existing disguise solutions that empower live events, audiovisual, location-based experiences and virtual production content in order to allow businesses to start taking advantage of the unique opportunities the metaverse has to offer.
Stint, the student workforce app, has announced significant changes to its ways of working, putting flexibility at the forefront of its employee experience and enabling its team to prioritise a healthy work life balance. Sam Schlagman, Stint’s co-founder and chief executive officer, revealed plans to introduce unlimited holiday to all its employees, as well as formalising a hybrid working model that gives each team within Stint the opportunity to decide where they work best, whether it’s at home or at their headquarters in Camden, London. The brand has also adapted its official HR policy to establish flexible working hours, with meetings and team-focused activities to be scheduled between 10am – 5pm from Monday to Friday, empowering colleagues to adjust their working hours to suit their lifestyle outside of these hours. These new policies are reflective of Stint’s business model, in which students can prioritise flexibility and fit work at hospitality venues around their university timetable, enabling them to earn money without compromising on their student experience. This news reveals Stint’s desire to implement a cohesive model across the business, giving its entire workforce the freedom to work in a way that best suits them.
Verto, the B2B cross-border foreign exchange (FX) and payments enabler, has announced the launch of its multi-currency global account. Using Verto’s global account, businesses can conveniently receive and send payments across 190 destinations, and hold funds, in up to 51 currencies, making Verto a one-stop-shop for businesses worldwide. Businesses often face high fees and copious paperwork when receiving foreign currencies. Verto’s new solution allows businesses to receive and collect payments seamlessly across the world using its platform, providing an effective and reliable multi-currency solution on the receiving end. The global account is a channel for businesses, regardless of where they are based, to access effective multi-currency solutions without the need for a local entity.
Metapack has announced that Homerr, a logistic tech scale-up, has joined its Delivery Manager Platform, enabling retailers to offer their consumers with a more sustainable and social method of receiving and returning parcels. The partnership has gone live across 2000+ locations in The Netherlands and Belgium, providing consumers in the region with greater control and certainty in the delivery of their parcels. Available on Metapack’s global delivery management platform, Homerr has created a new simple sustainable and innovative delivery solution for consumers, allowing them to collect and return parcels through social (at home) and service point locations, such as local stores and delivery hubs. Homerr’s specific focus on sustainability has pushed them to be label-less and to use pre-existing delivery routes, enabling them to save up to 79% CO2 emissions per parcel.
