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In Financial Services, ERP & Finance, Fund, Portfolio News

Sedna banks $34M for a platform that parses large volumes of email and chat to automatically action items within them

Many have tried to do away with it, but email refuses to die … although in the process it might be (figuratively speaking) killing some of us with the workload it brings on to triage and use it. A startup called Sedna has built a system to help with that — specifically for enterprise and other business customers — by “reading” the text of emails and chats, and automatically actioning items within them so that you don’t have to. Today, it’s announcing funding of $34 million to expand its work.

The funding, a Series B, is being led by Insight Partners, with Stride.VC, Chalfen Ventures and the SAP.iO fund (part of SAP) also participating. The funding will be used to continue building out more data science around Sedna’s core functionality, with the aim of moving into a wider set of verticals over time. Currently its main business is in the area of supply chain players, with Glencore, Norden and Bunge among its customers. Other customers in areas like finance include the neobank Starling. London-based Sedna is not disclosing valuation.

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In San Francisco, HR & People Engagement

Mentor Spaces Raises $2.5M to Bring More Diverse Talent Into the Workplace

Denver-based startup Mentor Spaces announced the closing of its $2.5 million seed funding round. The American Family Insurance Institute for Corporate and Social Impact led the round, with participation from several others.

Mentor Spaces launched in 2020 in order to bring more diversity into the workplace. Countless companies pledged to do better in their diversity, equity and inclusion efforts last year. But saying you’ll do something and actually doing it are two separate things. Underrepresented groups can be excluded from the workplace not because the intent to hire them isn’t there, but instead because of what Mentor Spaces calls the “network gap.”

As Mentor Spaces points out, research shows that location, education and prior employment can make a person 12x more likely to be given a certain opportunity. Because of this, marginalized groups must work much harder to secure the same opportunities as non-marginalized folks, or risk remaining on the margins.

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In San Francisco, Portfolio News, HR & People Engagement

Mentor Spaces Raises $2.5MM to Advance the Careers of Underrepresented Talent Through Mentorship

Mentor Spaces, a community-driven mentorship platform helping companies scale their diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, today announced it has raised $2.5MM in a seed round of funding. The American Family Insurance Institute for Corporate and Social Impact(AmFam Institute) led the round, with participation from ECMC, Portfolia, Rethink Education, Service Provider Capital, and The Social Entrepreneurs’ Fund.

“As one of the largest mentorship communities for underrepresented students and professionals, funds from this round will enhance our ability to support our clients’ goals to efficiently build diverse talent pipelines through a mentorship-centered strategy,” said Chris Motley, founder and CEO, Mentor Spaces. “As a Black founder, raising institutional capital is not easy, and our team is thrilled at the positive response that the market has shown to our unique approach to solve one of the biggest challenges talent acquisition leaders face today.”

While LinkedIn’s research shows that one’s location, education, and employment can give individuals a 12-fold advantage in gaining access to opportunity, underrepresented professionals without confidence and social capital are at a significant disadvantage when pursuing new job opportunities. Many mentorship solutions in the market don’t address the key issues caused by this “network gap,” further limiting opportunities for underrepresented students and professionals. Recent studies also show that Black employees are leaving early-career jobs in droves due to the lack of support and visibility to opportunities at their organizations.

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In Podcast

How SAP.iO Drives Innovation and Growth for Startups and Customers Around the World

Since 2017, SAP.iO has helped more than 300+ external startups and internal ventures accelerate their growth while enabling thousands of SAP’s customers to access innovation. With over 20 years of experience in business development and strategy in the tech industry, it would be hard to find someone more qualified to lead the company’s early-stage startup acceleration and incubation programs across the world than Alexa Gorman.

To officially kick off the second season of The Business of Marketing Podcast, Adweek’s Chief Innovation Officer Toby Daniels sat down with SAP.iO’s SVP, Global Head of Foundries and Intrapreneurship to discuss her career at SAP that spans over two decades, how SAP.IO works with startups to develop marketing strategies to drive business transformation and their commitment to inclusivity by pledging to accelerate 200+ startups from underrepresented founders.

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In Press

Investors, Innovators, Influencers – Kange Kaneene, Vice President, SAP.iO Foundries North America – SAP

Tell us about the professional journey that took you where you are today. What major lessons did you learn along the way?

In high school before I went to college, I did not know what to study, so my dad suggested computer science. He made that suggestion because in high school I would spend a lot of time at the house talking to my friends on AOL instant messenger and he assumed I had a love for computers. I don’t think he knew I was actually just chatting with friends. I had never heard of computer science before, so I was willing to enroll in the introductory computer science class during the first semester freshman year at university. What I liked about the class was it helped me lean into my creativity side. Back then we would literally start with a black screen and then type sophisticated text and generate a computer program. I loved how programming allowed us to create something from nothing. The course also helped me learn how to have a very structured way of thinking. In programming, one needs to consider all details for any computer program to be successful. After surviving the introductory class, I decided to major in computer science. To be honest it was an extremely challenging journey. First of all, my academic advisor literally told me he didn’t think computer science was a good fit for me. I remember being so angry he would make such a statement without even knowing me and that frustration fueled my motivation to graduate with a computer science degree. Each course was harder than the previous and sometimes I would work on computer programs for 12 hours straight. I think that is how I developed a work hard, play hard personality. Many weekends I would literally be at the library all day and then come back in the evening and take shots with my roommates before going out only to wake up in the morning and study some more.

Close to graduation I was interviewing for typical software engineering roles at companies like Microsoft, Merrill Lynch and Cerner. One day I saw a poster for a corporate presentation for Bain and Company serving free catering from Panera Bread. Back then most corporate presentations served pizza, so I was over the moon for an opportunity for Panera and registered for the presentation. Before then I had never heard of consulting. However, the presenter explained opportunities to work on distinct projects for several industries, travel and interact with external clients. I realized a consulting job was a better fit for my personality than the software engineering roles I was applying for. However, after such a challenging college experience with computer science I was not comfortable completely throwing away my computer science knowledge. Therefore, I targeted tech consulting firms and ending up at a supply chain tech consulting firm called Manhattan Associate in Atlanta.

I had never lived in a proper city before and I did not know anyone in Atlanta so I was extremely scared. However, I reached out to my network to introduce me to people they knew in Atlanta, signed up for networking events etc. and before I knew it Atlanta was my home. That was the first time I was truly independent financially and socially and it was an amazing feeling. I had to reinvent myself several more times in my career as I moved around to new places such as New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia and Singapore.

Consulting taught me how to quickly get up to speed as I started new projects and ask the right questions to understand different management styles for each project manager I had to work with.

After a few years I wanted to try a new professional challenge, but I did not know what I wanted to do. I learned about leadership development rotational problems and figured those programs were good ways to quickly learn about different roles within a company to later decide which roles are the most interesting. After more research I understood most leadership development rotational programs recruit from full time MBA programs, so I decided to apply and ended up quitting my job and moved to NYC for school full time.

Deciding to go so business school was one of the best decisions I have ever made. I met the most interesting and diverse group of people I have ever known, I acquired essential business acumen and I went on 7 international trips that helped to broaden my perspective. I also learned to make my goals as specific as possible so that they are easy to achieve. For example, in my application I said I wanted to intern at Citibank between years 1 and 2, do a pro-bono consulting project for Alvin Ailey and join the leadership team for the Association for Hispanic and Black Business students. I am so proud to say I was able to accomplish all those goals.

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In Press Release, Portfolio News, HR & People Engagement, Announcements

Amwell Enhances Virtual Care Platform with Two Acquisitions: SilverCloud Health and Conversa Health

Amwell, a national telehealth leader, today announced that it has signed definitive agreements to acquire SilverCloud Health, a leading digital mental health platform, and Conversa Health, a leader in automated virtual healthcare. By adding the technology of these two companies to its virtual care platform, Amwell is greatly enhancing the differentiated value it can bring to current and future clients. Each company brings unique, proven capabilities that will position Amwell to materially advance the reach and impact of care teams on patients’ lives through the use of interactive tools that strengthen the cohesion between physical and virtual care.

“We believe that future care delivery will inevitably blend in-person, virtual and digital care experiences; and as such, we are uniquely building a global platform to support such advanced, coordinated care,” said Ido Schoenberg, Chairman and Co-CEO, Amwell. “By integrating SilverCloud Health and Conversa Health into our platform we are demonstrating Amwell’s fundamental and repeatable design to continually scale digital healthcare services across the different sites of care. These acquisitions will amplify the presence and reach of care teams and reaffirm that as the needs of the healthcare marketplace evolve, so too will the Amwell platform.”

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In Blog, Tel Aviv, CRM & Customer Experience

Quickly leverage rich external data to improve decision making using Explorium

The need for companies to leverage external data is no longer a nice-to-have, but critical to success. Extracting quality data from a variety of reputable sources is extremely labor-intensive, costly, and manual. Looking to streamline and more effectively leverage external context to feed into your analytical models and improve decision making? Meet Explorium.

With Explorium, SAP Sales Cloud & Customer Data Cloud customers can tap into their first-party data and dynamically integrate it with outside sources, extracting powerful context-based signals to inform more precise acquisition, conversion and retention decisions, across channels & markets, in far less time. Explorium will help SAP customers increase revenue, streamline operations, reduce risks, and automate model performance, model prediction, and model training.

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In Portfolio News, Supply Chain Management, Sustainability

This Is A Eureka Moment For Sustainability: Affordable Products

Once upon a time, we easily traded-off product sustainability for reasonable prices, quality, and safety. Now we expect companies to bake sustainability into business as usual, and startups like Simreka have the technology to make it happen. Its cloud-based simulation software helps manufacturers experiment faster to create more sustainable products.

“We are accelerating the design and manufacture of products that are both cost-effective and sustainable,” said Dr. Akshay Patel, co-founder and CEO at Simreka. “Companies can quickly collect and analyze data including materials, manufacturing processes, quality and performance standards, pricing, safety and compliance, and carbon emissions to simulate design options. With these insights, leaders can make product design decisions that will best meet business targets.”

Simreka’s customers are primarily consumer packaged goods (CPGs) and chemical materials manufacturers in the United States, Europe, Middle East, and Mexico. Professionals in product research and development (R&D), supply chain, materials, quality assurance, sustainability, and manufacturing operations are relying on the software’s AI-based algorithms to answer critical questions like should we develop this new product, redesign an existing one, select this particular material, or take another manufacturing approach? The company also provides data from public sources to support customer decisions.

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In ERP & Finance, Supply Chain Management, Funding Announcement

Investors pour funding into logistics-focused communication system

Workplace collaboration software provider Sedna Systems said Monday it has landed $34 million in funding to grow the reach of its system that is designed to wean distributed organizations off a reliance on email.

Although the software is applicable to a range of sectors where decentralized teams use multiple communications channels to coordinate, Sedna sees a sizable opportunity in the global logistics industry, founder and CEO Bill Dobie told JOC.com.

Founded in 2017, London-based Sedna initially gained traction in the bulk shipping sector, based on Dobie’s background in that sector. It has since attracted customers in a range of maritime and logistics verticals, including third-party logistics providers, ship services agencies, and commodity traders.

The $34 million series B round was led by New York-based venture capital firm Insight Partners, an active early-stage investor that has backed companies in the logistics space for 25 years, partner Rebecca Liu-Doyle told JOC.com. Among its recent moves are leading project44’s $100 million round in December and funding into last-mile technology provider Bringg and freight payment platform PayCargo. Insight also has a longstanding stake in supply chain management software provider E2open.

“The sectors that we find attractive are large, complex, and confusing,” Liu-Doyle said. “Logistics is a massive market, with $1.5 trillion spent in the US alone. It’s vast, with stakeholders that need to coordinate highly important transactions. But we’re by no means only logistics-focused investors. We’re enterprise-focused investors. We want to catch inflection points in the transformation of industries.”

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In Tel Aviv, CRM & Customer Experience

Drive Meaningful Consumer Engagement with SundaySky

It’s official: Brands who do not incorporate real-time content rendering will be left in the dust. Today, digital is no longer a “nice-to-have,” but critical to a company’s success. As more and more brands turn to video as a means to connect with consumers, they are realizing how difficult and costly it is to create and maintain engaging and scalable video experiences as well as measure their impact.

Enter SundaySky.

SundaySky built a real-time content rendering engine in the cloud with infinite scale that intelligently versions video relevant to each individual viewer, activated by optional data. SundaySky empowers brands to deliver video experiences at critical moments along customer journeys in order to engage, educate, and inspire.

Rethinking Video

Whether operating in CPG and retail, or insurance and telecommunications industries, SundaySky gives marketers and CX business leaders the tools to simply drag and drop creative assets into video templates order to weave together a beautifully branded, relevant video. Users can build their own experiences from scratch and get inspired by existing industry templates with SundaySky’s easy-to-use modules, no video or after-effects experience needed. After the video is created, users can deploy the experience on commerce sites and distribute through email and mobile apps.

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In Foundries, Tel Aviv, CRM & Customer Experience

Grow Your Online Sales with Algopix — Product Intelligence Platform for E-commerce

With increased competition in all areas and markets across the e-commerce world, the never-ending shifts in online marketing, and the gaps between brick-and-mortar and online stores, brands are really feeling the heat. In order to thrive and gain market share, brands need access to actionable, real-time data.

Enter Algopix, a product intelligence platform for e-commerce.

Analyze and benchmark your market share gain and loss by platform or competitor

Using Algopix, brands can understand the sales volume of every product in the e-commerce market across all countries and channels. How does it work? Algopix receives data from over 70,000 brands and online sellers, aggregates and anonymizes the data, and then informs CPGs and brands the sales volume, how market share changes over time, and what causes these changes, for every brand, product category, or product.

A solution for various business leaders across the organization

Using Algopix’s solution, marketing managers can understand what campaigns work and drive market share up, and brand and product managers can realize what products are high demand in the market, what products their competitors are selling, and what product launches are successful. C-level executives working with Algopix can better understand the gap between what is happening in brick and mortar vs. what is happening online, and gain a comprehensive understanding of what works, what doesn’t work, and who is taking market share in real time.

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In Foundries, Tel Aviv, CRM & Customer Experience

Harness the power of brand enthusiasm among your consumers with Mention Me

Today, when consumers are looking to make a purchase, social proof is king. Recommendations from friends (and even strangers — think influencers!) are key in creating consumer trust and influencing a consumer’s decision to buy. While more and more brands are experimenting with referral marketing, many find themselves locked in to simple referral systems that do not deliver. Looking for a referral marketing platform where brands can turn their customers into their most powerful marketers? Enter Mention Me.

Mention Me creates a deeply data-driven program based on the context and behavior of buyers, helping brands identify each customer’s likelihood to refer, and at which point in the lifecycle referral is most likely to succeed. How does it work? Referral programs incentivize existing customers (referrers) to introduce a brand to their friends (referees). Ultimately, everyone wins: Rewards (think discount or free gift) are given to referrers for successful introductions that convert new customers, and are also given to referees when they make their first purchase. Mention Me’s Referral Engineering™ outperforms ‘simple’ referral systems, increasing customer acquisition by up to a third. The proof is in the pudding: Mention Me has delivered over $1 billion in revenue for clients, and over 22 million customers have shared their referral programs.

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In Portfolio News, ERP & Finance

Cutting carbon with AI: Emitwise CEO on making sustainability profitable

On January 20, on his first day in office, US President Joe Biden signed the country back into the Paris Agreement.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that action on climate is “vital in our discussions of national security, migration, international health efforts, and in our economic diplomacy and trade talks.”

But while the anti-climate rhetoric of the last four years has been consigned to history, the effects of pumping out more carbon will last for decades to come.

The US is responsible for 13 percent of global emissions, and China recently signaled in a virtual climate summit that it is willing to cooperate with the rival superpower on the climate crisis.

China’s own five-year plan for 2021-25 aims to increase its share of renewable energy, and for the country dubbed ‘the world’s factory’ to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060.

President Biden said in April that the US is aiming to cut its greenhouse gas emissions 50 percent to 52 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. A more aggressive target than China’s, but one that doesn’t go far enough for some.

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In Press, Article

C-Suite Leaders from Hulu, Snap and Harry’s Join Season 2 of The Business of Marketing

Earlier this year, Adweek and SAP.iO debuted The Business of Marketing podcast, a new series where listeners learned from company leaders and innovators on how CMOs work collaboratively with their C-suite partners to drive business transformation.

Over the course of the first season, we sat down with 17 executives from across the marketing landscape and covered topics such as responding to a global pandemic and using data to scale your business featuring leaders from brands like Walmart, Unilever, Mastercard, Square, Rolling Stone and NBCUniversal.

Today, we are excited to announce the release date for Season 2 of The Business of Marketing and the initial lineup of guests.

Season 2 will kick off July 29 with guest Alexa Gorman, svp and global head of foundries and intrapreneurship at SAP.iO, sitting down with Adweek’s chief innovation officer and host of The Business of Marketing, Toby Daniels, for a conversation about how to drive business transformation through startup acceleration.

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In Foundries, Tel Aviv, CRM & Customer Experience

Capture 1st Party Data at Scale with Jebbit

With the fierce competition to capture consumers’ attention that is only heating up, brands are desperately searching for ways to successfully interact with and convert consumers. With the endless amount of digital noise, brands are struggling to communicate authentically with their target audience and get the insights they need. The solution? Jebbit!

Which herbal shampoo is right for you?

Jebbit helps companies create all different kinds of interactive experiences without needing to touch a line of code. Whether it be a product match or a trivia game, these creative experiences get consumers to interact and answer questions in a way that is much more engaging than a typical survey. The average Jebbit experience sees an 85% completion rate, and takes a consumer two minutes to complete: these are two minutes where the brand has the undivided attention of the consumer, and is able to capture essential first party, self-declared data.

Taking control of how CPGs engage with consumers

Most of Jebbit’s customers are large enterprise brands in CPG, eCommerce, travel or the entertainment space. When brands consider working with Jebbit, they have often already built some kind of quiz, whether in-house or with an agency, and have begun dealing with how costly and time intensive it is to keep the experience maintained and optimized. By working with Jebbit, brands can take control of the experiences, and build and edit them in real-time. Brands who have run traditional surveys in the past view Jebbit as a way to create something much more engaging to the consumer, and in parallel, can use Jebbit data to validate market research, optimize marketing campaigns in real-time, and build audiences for personalized retargeting.

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