There’s a growing trend to doing commerce within social media and messaging. FastForward.ai is on it, with a platform that enables mobile operators and enterprises to create digital engagement, commerce and payments inside social and messaging apps. They just announced that an $8 million seed round of funding.
Today’s theme is “odd couples”. First up: contact center software vendor Serenova is merging with video conferencing vendor Lifesize. The connection may seem tenuous but remember that Serenova was purchased in 2016 by Marlin Equity Partners, which then backed Serenova’s acquisition of Telstrat call analytics in 2017 and ProScheduler workforce scheduling in 2019. The stated goal is a “holistic unified communications portfolio”
Europe’s base of home-grown Customer Data Platform vendors grew rapidly in 2019, according to the CDP Industry in Europe 2020 report from the Customer Data Platform Institute. The number of vendors grew by 73% and employment grew by 80% during the year. Estimated revenue for Europe-based firms reached €260 million.
Customer intelligence platform Acxiom will collaborate with ActionIQ to deliver enhanced customer insights. ActionIQ’s CDP will integrate with Acxiom’s demographic, household, behavioral and preference data and with Acxiom’s RealID identity resolution solution. Acxiom experts will work with clients to customize and streamline ActionIQ.