Finally, some funding news. Syncari has raised a $17.3 million Series A for its no-code data automation platform, whose superpower is to transform data from different systems into a common structure, so it can be easily shared. And Merge has raised a $4.5 million seed round for its API that lets B2B companies extract data from human resources, payroll, and accounting platforms. Neither system stores the data outside the original sources, so we’re clearly outside CDP territory.

One thing that’s perfectly clear is Zoom’s growth during the pandemic. They’re looking to build on their success by adding a virtual events platform, which will offer ticketing, registration, networking, and suchlike. They also published an interesting, if predictable, study that found video communications and hybrid events are here to stay.

Procrastinators of the world can throw a party whenever they get around to it: Google has once more pushed back complete third-party cookie deprecation.  The new target is “early next year.” Reasons for the delay include concerns expressed by U.K. data regulator Information Commissioner’s Office, an ongoing inquiry by the U.K. Competition and Markets Authority, and widespread discontent in the advertising ecosystem.