Aqfer offers a suite of highly-scalable SaaS tools that include a data collection tag, customer database, real-time data access, and identity graph manager. It sells these to integrators, agencies, data compilers, and other firms that want to control their own system rather than buying a packaged CDP. They just raised an $11 million Series A to help explain it more clearly than I just did.
ThoughtSpot also sells tools to data miners. Their special power is letting users query cloud databases in natural language. They just brought their total funding to $674 million with a $100 million Series F at a $4.2 billion valuation.
Netherlands-based Spotler Group has been buying email providers across Europe for several years now. They just added Pure360-parent Purepromoter to the list. Spotler bought Dutch CDP Squeezely back in August.
Martech keeps taking larger bites out of marketing budgets: 17.3% last year, 19.9% this year, 23.5% next year, and 30.9% five years from now, according to the latest CMO Survey. This despite barely more than half (56.4%) of current tools being used and nearly half (48.8%) of the survey respondents reporting worse-than-expected results. Oddly enough, marketers rate selecting marketing technologies as the thing they do best.