When public markets pull back, private investors often step in to scoop up perceived bargains. Private equity firm Clearhaven Partners just did that, spending something over $100 million for a majority stake in video creation and personalization platform SundaySky. Sunday Sky just published a study showing how marketers struggle to create videos the old-fashioned way.
Martech financing dropped substantially in the second quarter of 2022, according to this LUMA analysis. The number of merger and acquisition transactions fell slightly compared with the previous quarter (41 vs 45) but deals over $100 million were down 50%. Stock prices for public martech firms fell 35%, which is even worse than the 22% drop in NASDAQ as a whole. Lots of details and reference data here if you want it.
Don’t confuse a drop in martech funding with a drop in martech investment. Most studies show markets continue to invest at the same or higher levels as last year. For example, Gartner’s widely-cited CMO Spend survey found over-all marketing budgets rose sharply as a share of revenue and there was no meaningful change in the percentage spent on martech.
Salesforce is buying Airkit.ai, which builds low-code, AI-powered e-commerce customer service agents. You might have thought Salesforce could already do that, but presumably Airkit does it better. It doesn’t hurt that the company founders sold a previous business to Salesforce, the company was partly funded by Salesforce Ventures, and the product is already listed on AppExchange. Price was not announced.