PlaceIQ, the company building a new model of consumer behavior by connecting physical and digital activities across time, space, and mobile devices, today announced it has secured a strategic investment from Alibaba Group, the world’s largest online and mobile commerce company. The minority investment from Alibaba Group will help PlaceIQ scale its operations in order to meet accelerating market demand for its technology.
Leanplum, the leader in mobile marketing, today announced that it closed a $29 million round in Series C funding. The round was led by Canaan Partners, with participation from existing investors Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) and Shasta Ventures. Since its 2012 launch, the company has raised a total of $46.3 million. Leanplum will use the new funding to expand its sales, marketing, and engineering teams and drive aggressive global expansion. Joydeep Bhattacharyya formerly of Shasta Ventures, who recently joined Canaan Partners, will return to Leanplum board of directors.
Trying to determine a person’s digital “identity” over time across devices is the mission of the moment. Every ad tech and mar tech platform, as well as data providers and aspirant start-ups, confuse prospects and customers alike with multi-syllabic descriptions of their deterministic and probabilistic approaches to truth.
The U.S. Senate has passed a bill that could potentially ban TikTok in the U.S. if its Chinese owner, ByteDance, does not sell its holdings within a year. The bill now goes to the President Biden, who has said he will sign it. Court challenges are likely to follow.