A startup that has built digital profiles on 200 million people has raised $31 million
Founded in 2012, BounceX refers to itself as a cloud-based behavioral marketing company. Unlike marketing technology - or 'martech' - giants like Adobe or Oracle, BounceX isn't aiming to provide software designed to help marketers manage all of their data and budgets.
Instead the The New York-based firm is focused on helping e-commerce companies and publishers ranging from Sears to Kate Spade to Gannett understand more about their web visitors. The more they know about these visitors, the better they can target them with ads and offers.
According to CEO Ryan Urban, many web publishers and commerce sites aren't capable of properly identifying customers - and maximizing their revenue - unless consumers register or login when they visit their sites. To help, Urban says BounceX has amassed data on 200 million web users with a focus on identifying people as they move from device to device.
"So much of web targeting is cookie-based," said Urban. "Everything we do is people based."
The tech firm creates these profiles by tracking more than 20 different identifiers. For example, they can tie a digital beacon (a small bit of computer code) to a person's email address and track that person anonymously across different web outlets and devices, wherever they check email or use that address to log in or check out of particular web site, Ryan says.
Marketers can use their own email address lists and other first-party data to match up with BounceX's profiles and potentially connect with customers on multiple devices.
For example, brands like Neiman Marcus can target small clusters of customers with more custom offers rather than blasting out the same email to their full subscriber list, said Urban.
The new funding round was led by Silicon Valley Bank. The plan is to make several eight-figure acquisitions in the marketing technology sector and to hire several dozen engineers, said Urban. He won't say which startups BounceX is looking to buy.
Urban said he expects BounceX to reach $100 million in annual recurring revenue within the next two years.