Dataminr might have picked up an incredible valuation, but March belonged to Meltwater. The Norwegian giant made an acquisition, won a contract and was named the best media monitoring solution. March also saw funding news for influencer marketing start-ups, and rumours abound on possible divestments.
Dataminr picks up $USD 475 million
Dataminr, the open source intelligence leader, has picked up a whopping $USD475 million in its latest funding round. The company says the capital will be used to accelerate the growth of its corporate business line and focus on growth in Europe and Asia Pacific. The series F funding round provided Dataminr with a valuation of $USD4.1 billion. (In case you need some context: Kantar, with its $USD3.2 billion in revenue and 30,000 employees, was valued at $USD4 billion when Bain took a 60% stake in 2019.)
Meltwater acquires Linkfluence for €50 million
Meltwater has announced the acquisition of Linkfluence, the French social insights provider, for €50 million. The deal value is two times 2020 revenue. According to Meltwater CEO, John Box, the deal will leave Meltwater “well-positioned to be the driving force of automating the multibillion-dollar market research industry”. The deal is expected to close in May.
Meltwater wins Singapore contract, named lead media monitor
It has been a busy month for Meltwater. Singapore’s Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI) has appointed Meltwater, Isentia and Truescope to provide media monitoring and/or online analytics services for the whole of government. Meltwater’s total rate card is SG$20,580 while Isentia’s and Truescope’s were SG$12,264 and SG$9,800 respectively. Meltwater was also named number 1 in Media Monitoring the G2 Crowd Spring 2021 Grid Report. G2 also classed the company as a leader across software categories including Social Media, PR Analytics and Media and Influencer Targeting.
Infleunxio raises $USD 2 million
Influenxio, the Taipei-based startup, which connects brands with Instagram microinfluencers has closed $USD 2 million in pre-Series A funding led by DCM Ventures. Founded in 2018, Influenxio has now raised over $USD 3 million in total. It currently operates in Taiwan and Japan, where it has databases of some 350,000 Instagram creators. So far, over 6,000 brands have registered on Influenxio’s platform, and it has been used to run over 1,000 campaigns.Promoty picks up €1.2 million
Sticking with influencer marketing platforms, Promoty, an Estonian platform that connects Instagram influencers to retail brands, has raised 1.2 million euros. The funding will be used to strengthen its position in the new markets in Scandinavia and the Baltics, and expand to other platforms like TikTok and Youtube. Established in late 2017, Promoty has been used by over 46,000 influencers and 3,400 marketers.
AWS rolls out media intelligence solution
AWS has introduced AWS Media Intelligence (AWS MI). The suite of solution will enable users to analyse media and improve content engagement rates, either via turnkey solutions from AWS Partners or using AWS Solutions to enable rapid prototyping. AWS MI solutions are powered by AI services such as Amazon Rekognition for image and video analysis, Amazon Comprehend for natural language comprehension, and Amazon Translate. While the solution is aimed at broadcast media owners, it should generate incredibly interesting data.Rumour: PRNewswire & Notified for sale
We all like a little gossip, and so we’re finishing up with a couple of items from the industry rumour mill. First up, Cision is reportedly planning to sell PR Newswire. This is not a new rumour, and there’s apparently no formal process in place. Meanwhile, Apollo, the investment group that owns Intrado, has a rumoured plan to sell Notified. Intrado, formerly known as West, purchased the Notified platform in 2019. Watch this space.
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