Insider Announces $32M Series C Funding to Invest in AI that Shifts the Status Quo in Multichannel Experience Orchestration

Insider helps 800+ leading brands like Singapore Airlines, Marks & Spencer, Virgin, Uniqlo, Samsung, and Estée Lauder accelerate digital growth through best-in-class customer engagement. 

Insider, a profitable SaaS company that takes a unique approach to Multichannel Experience Orchestration, announced today its $32 million Series C funding round, bringing total funding to date to $47M. The round was led by Riverwood Capital and was joined by Sequoia India, Wamda, and Endeavor Catalyst. The additional capital will be used to further enhance the award-winning platform’s capabilities, add top-tier engineers to Insider’s exceptional R&D team, and invest in the company’s global sales and marketing efforts.  

Most digital marketers face the same problem: there are too many tools that claim to be “multichannel” and provide a “hub.” Instead, it is the case that customer data sits in silos, sales channels remain under-developed or even unavailable, and the end product is a point-solution rather than a true hub. This creates disjointed experiences for consumers and hinders marketing ROI. 

Insider’s AI-powered platform enables enterprise marketers to connect customer data across channels and systems, predict their future behavior with an AI-powered intent engine, and orchestrate and deliver individualized experiences to customers. Their platform is unique in how it offers the widest set of product features in the market while coordinating all offline and online data across the unified platform and its various engagement channels. The powerful AI intent engine consists of 15+ algorithms that enable marketers to make precise predictions such as which customer segments are likely to convert, buy, and churn — and then design the most optimized experiences accordingly.  

Insider’s channel integrations take minutes, not months — reducing dependency on internal IT teams. Ultimately, Insider enables digital marketers to drive growth across channels,  and throughout the funnel from acquisition to activation, revenue and retention (AARR) — thereby impacting ROI metrics such as conversion rate, CAC, LTV, and average order value. 

Insider is trusted by more than 800 global enterprise brands, including industry powerhouses such as UNIQLO, Singapore Airlines, Marks & Spencer, Estée Lauder, Virgin, Samsung, Carrefour, Dominos, Toyota, Newsweek, Avon, MediaMarkt, AVIS, Allianz, BBVA, IKEA and CNN. With teams on the ground in 24 countries, Insider ensures deep localization and unparalleled support for their clients.  

Insider CEO and Co-founder, and Endeavor Entrepreneur, Hande Cilingir explained that as a profitable company they did not want to raise capital too soon but continued to receive strong inbound interest from VCs. 

“We’ve only raised capital when we felt that we were ready to raise the bar to a whole new level. A self-imposed scarcity always made us more creative, more resourceful and more aggressive in reaching our goals,” she added.

“So far, we’ve focused on leading in high-potential markets in the Eastern part of the world. We’ve partnered with industry powerhouses like Samsung, Uniqlo, and Singapore Airlines in APAC as well as Qantas in Australia, and Marks & Spencer, Estee Lauder, and Carrefour in Europe. We plan to grow substantially in our existing 24 countries and we are now ready to enter the US market and believe that our fresh solutions to marketers’ biggest pain points will be a major differentiator,” added Cilingir.

The beginning of the pandemic saw a rapid surge in demand for eCommerce and Media companies worldwide. Insider’s agile digital sales team was well-positioned to turn this increasing traffic into conversions by helping their partners respond to ‘net new digital behaviors’ in real time. In the post-Covid market, brands will need to digitize more than ever. As online consumption increases and shoppers start reprioritizing their postponed purchases, Insider expects to continue its accelerated levels of growth.

“Technology on its own is never enough to make top brands your loyal fans. The culture and the tight-knit community Insider has built and then been able to scale up globally is nothing like what we’ve come across before. The level of commitment and care they have for the brands they partner with is what makes the Insider team truly unique,” said Linda Rottenberg, Co-founder, and CEO of Endeavor. Earlier this year, Insider was once again selected to the Endeavor Outliers Program, recognizing the most outstanding Endeavor Entrepreneurs leading the fastest-growing companies around the world. 

Insider has been recently featured in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Multichannel Marketing Hubs 2020 and became the #1 leader on G2Crowd’s Mobile Marketing Software Grid with a 4.7/5 rating based on 100% user reviews, 14 quarters in a row. Insider’s co-founder and CEO Hande Cilingir was selected as one of the top women CEOs outside of the US by Crunchbase.

About Insider

Founded in 2012 by 6 young founders from humble backgrounds, Hande Cilingir (CEO), Serhat Soyuerel (VP of Growth), Arda Köterin (VP of Customer Success), Sinan Toktay (CTO), Okan Yedibela (VP of Engineering) and Muharrem Derinkök (VP of Product), the Insider team has 550+ team members from 41 different nationalities across 24 countries worldwide. Insider is a heavily women-led organization with 50% of top executives in the company, including the CEO, CMO, CFO, and CPO, being women. Hande Cilingir was selected as one of the top women CEOs outside of the US by Crunchbase.

Insider’s Multichannel Growth Management Platform (GMP) helps digital marketers drive growth across the funnel, from acquisition to activation, retention, and revenue (AARR). Leveraging real-time predictive segmentation powered by deep Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning capabilities, the Growth Management Platform empowers marketers to deliver personalized journeys across the web, mobile web, mobile apps, messaging, email, and ad channels. Built on a unified data layer, GMP is easy to implement and simple to use, avoiding the need for complex integrations and dependency on IT teams. Insider simplifies the life of digital marketers and helps them drive growth for their brands, with zero marketing waste. 

Insider is a technology company with offices in London, Paris, Singapore, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Seoul, Sydney, Helsinki, Barcelona, Dubai, Moscow, Warsaw, Taipei, Jakarta, Manila, Wellington, Istanbul, Kiev, Ho Chi Minh City, Bangkok, Brussels, Amsterdam, Luxemburg, Ankara, and Kuala Lumpur. 

Insider has been recently featured in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Multichannel Marketing Hubs 2020 and became the #1 leader on G2Crowd’s Mobile Marketing Software Grid with a 4.7/5 rating based on 100% user reviews, 14 quarters in a row. CrunchBase recently ranked www.useinsider.com

About Endeavor Catalyst

Endeavor Catalyst is an innovative, rules-based co-investment vehicle through which Endeavor invests into its portfolio companies. Launched in 2012, Endeavor Catalyst has raised more than $200M+ across three funds and made 140+ investments to date in 25 different countries. Investments include Globant (NYSE:GLOB) and Rappi (valued at $3.5B+) in Latin America, Yemeksepeti.com (acq’d Delivery Hero $589M, 2015) and Peak Games (acq’d Zynga $1.8B, 2020) in Turkey, RUMA (acq’d Go-JEK, 2017) in Indonesia, and FIGS (acq’d, 2017) in the US.

About Riverwood

Riverwood Capital is a technology-focused growth equity firm with over $3 billion in assets under management. Riverwood offers a unique combination of operational, strategic, technology, and financial insight to portfolio companies that need both growth capital and expertise to scale. Riverwood invests globally and leads both minority and control deals. The firm has offices in Menlo Park, CA; New York, NY; and Sao Paulo, Brazil. For more information about Riverwood and its portfolio, please visit www.riverwoodcapital.com.

About Sequoia Capital India

Sequoia helps daring founders build legendary companies, from idea to IPO and beyond. Sequoia India operates in Southeast Asia and India where we actively partner with founders from a wide range of companies, across categories, including BYJUs, Carousell, Druva, GO-JEK, OYO Rooms, Tokopedia, Truecaller, Zilingo, Zomato and more.

We spur founders to push the boundaries of what’s possible. In partnering with Sequoia, startups benefit from 48 years of tribal knowledge and lessons learned working with companies like Airbnb, Alibaba, Apple, Dropbox, Google, LinkedIn and Stripe early on.

From the beginning, non-profits have been the backbone of our LP base, which means founders’ accomplishments make a meaningful difference. The majority of our profits are returned to great causes, like the Ford Foundation, Mayo Clinic and MIT. For more information on Sequoia’s work in India and SE Asia, visit sequoiacap.com/india

About Wamda

Wamda accelerates entrepreneurship ecosystems throughout the Mena region by joining Wamda’s multi-stage, sector-agnostic investment vehicle, focused on partnering with high growth technology or technology-enabled startups, as well as the leading knowledge platform offering integrated programmes including thought leadership and research, community development, Wamda’s fellowship programme Wamda X, as well as corporate and government advisory services to the various stakeholders of the Mena startup ecosystem.