Marketing tech firm mParticle's cofounder explains how a fresh $45 million in funding will keep the company ahead of Salesforce and Adobe
- Marketing-tech firm mParticle has raised $45 million in Series D funding, bringing the company's total funding to more than $121 million.
- The firm said it would use the money to create products and partner with tech firms to stay ahead of competitors like Adobe and Salesforce.
- Data privacy laws like California's Consumer Privacy Act are requiring marketers to change how they collect and use people's data, and mParticle has signed a deal with LiveRamp that helps advertisers target and create ad campaigns.
- Click here for more BI Prime stories.
Marketing tech firm mParticle has raised $45 million in Series D funding as it looks to strike bigger deals with tech firms and stay ahead of Adobe and Salesforce.
MParticle is one of several marketing tech firms that sells software called '"consumer data platforms" that help brands collect and manage first-party data from websites and apps to stay in line with growing privacy regulations like California's Consumer Privacy Act.
Over the past couple of years, the number of companies pitching consumer data platforms to marketers has ballooned to include firms like Amperity, Simon Data and Segment as well as cloud giants Adobe and Salesforce.
MParticle chief operating officer and cofounder Dave Myers said the new funding would be used for new products, hiring internationally and inking deals with tech firms like LiveRamp.
"If there's a common theme that underpins [the brands that we work with], it's that they have an imperative to adopt to changing consumer behavior - that's a struggle," he said. "Being able to understand that data, have quality around that data and stitch it together for analytics, personalization and targeting is a massive challenge from an infrastructure perspective."
Mparticle's funding was led by Arrowroot Capital and included previous investors. The 7-year-old firm counts Spotify, Starbucks and NBCUniversal as clients and has raised more than $121 million to date.
Startups are racing to beat the marketing clouds
In recent years, Adobe, Salesforce and Oracle have spent millions to build marketing platforms that promise to handle all of advertisers' data needs. In November, Adobe rolled out a consumer data platform, and Salesforce launched one last summer.
But some marketers say that they don't want to be limited to working with one company. That could be good news for firms like mParticle that are trying to fend off the marketing clouds.
Last year, mParticle rolled out an API that helps marketers create personalized marketing messages in real time - like recommended products based on order history - and avoid hitting consumers with the same ad over and over.
Myers said mParticle planned to stay competitive by inking tech partnerships that are aimed at helping marketers collect and use data - starting with LiveRamp. The deal lets marketers crunch first-party data into audiences that is then pushed to LiveRamp's IdentityLink product to manage and target ad campaigns.