-Accel Partners and Salesforce Ventures join Balderton Capital to make investment in leading customer data technology
-Funding to fuel rapid US expansion and product innovation as Qubit's integrated personalization platform disrupts market of single point solutions
-Accel Partners' Bruce Golden to join Qubit board
Qubit, the ecommerce technology company, has today announced a $26m Series B investment led by Accel Partners, with participation from original investor Balderton Capital and Salesforce Ventures, Salesforce.com's corporate investment group.
Qubit provides an integrated personalization platform to ecommerce businesses helping them drive cutting edge customer experience for their online users.
The investment will be used to fuel rapid expansion of Qubit's presence in the US and accelerate its ongoing programme of product innovation. As part of the investment Bruce Golden, an early investor in NASDAQ-listed companies such as Qliktech, Comscore and Responsys, will join Qubit's board where he will join Balderton's Bernard Liautaud, founder of Business Objects.
Ecommerce continues to expand at a double-digit growth rate globally. Behind the investment in Qubit, which achieved 260% year on year growth in sales in the six months to June 2014, lies an increasing recognition that website personalization and optimization are key levers for growth. Marketers recognize the need to serve highly-personalized content to their customers in real-time, based on an integrated data platform and constant A/B testing. Hundreds of the leading names in global ecommerce already take advantage of Qubit's applications, including Hilton Hotels, Jimmy Choo, Staples, Farfetch, Topshop and Uniqlo.
Qubit's personalization platform collects detailed information about users' interactions with a website and analyses it to identify patterns of behaviour that drive revenue and inspire business-wide optimization decisions.
The company's integrated suite of products provides the ability to optimize the onlineexperience whilst making web data available throughout the whole business. The suite includes personalization and A/B testing, audience segmentation, digital analytics and tag management. These applications allow marketers to optimize and test websites in real-time, without the need for specialist IT resource, helping drive rapid and sustained ROI.
Qubit's unique technology stack is built on a unified visitor data hub processing more than 1.5bn online customer events every day, enabling its clients to understand their visitors' behaviour and build profitable relationships with them.
Bruce Golden said: "Qubit is the solution of choice for businesses trying to develop a 360 degree view of their customers and prospects, then converting that insight into actionable personalized content and offers to drive real uplift.
"We have been hugely impressed by the Qubit team's deep expertise in online marketing and their ambitious product roadmap."
Bernard Liautaud said: "We are happy that Accel and Salesforce now join us in supporting Qubit's rapid growth. Since we invested in Qubit in 2012 they have built a world-class integrated data platform, grown to be the leader in their sector in the UK and made a successful entry into the US market"
Graham Cooke, Qubit's CEO and co-founder, said: "We're delighted to welcome Accel into the Qubit family and Bruce Golden onto our board of directors. To date we have carved ourselves a position in the market by offering clients the market's best, most flexible and integrated range of personalization applications; ones that drive real uplifts that CFOs can see in the bottom line."
"This product offering and the data that underpins it has seen us become a leader in the mature UK market and a challenger with a big punch in the US where recent wins include bebe, Dr Jays and Indochino."
"Clients are increasingly turning to our integrated technology after years of frustration with the market's single-point solutions. They are finding that our suite of products can optimize their online experiences and help their data to drive rapid and sustained ROI."
"The unparalleled market expertise on our board and the beginning of a partnership with Salesforce will help us continue to lead in this increasingly relevant space, both in Europe and the strategically important US market."
For more details or interviews, call:
Qubit - Mark Choueke +44 7832 139827
Accel Partners – Eliza Dabney +44 792 923 2003
Balderton Capital – Victoria Palmer-Moore +44 207 324 0493 / +44 7725 565 545
About Qubit
Qubit's personalisation platform helps brands meet the demands of the Apple, Google and Uber generation of consumers, where user experience trumps marketing hype. Built around the needs of omnichannel businesses, its technology collects detailed information about users' interactions with a website and analyses it to identify patterns of behaviour that drive onsite revenue and inspire business-wide optimisation decisions. Founded in 2010 by four ex-Googlers, Qubit is headquartered in London with offices in New York and Paris. Qubit works with some of the world's leading ecommerce businesses, including TOPSHOP, Uniqlo, John Lewis, Jimmy Choo and Staples. The company received $7.5 million funding from Balderton Capital in December 2012.
About Accel
Founded in 1983, Accel Partners has a long history of partnering with outstanding entrepreneurs and management teams to build world-class businesses. Accel today invests globally using dedicated teams and market-specific strategies for local geographies, with offices in Palo Alto,
New York City, London and Bangalore. Accel has helped entrepreneurs build over 300 successful companies, many of which have defined their categories, including Alfresco, Angry Birds (Rovio), Atlassian, Cloudera, ComScore, Dropbox, Facebook, Gameforge, Groupon, Imperva, Kayak, Playfish, QlikTech, Responsys, Spotify, Supercell, Varonis and Wonga. For more information, please visit the Accel Partners web site at www.accel.com. Find us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/accel
About Balderton Capital
Balderton Capital is one of the largest venture capital firms in Europe, committed to finding and helping talented entrepreneurs build great companies. Based in London, the firm manages $2.2 billion. Since 2000, Balderton has invested in over 100 companies, principally across Europe. Notable realised investments include NaturalMotion (the mobile gaming developer, sold to Zynga in 2014), Betfair (the online betting exchange, 2010 IPO), LOVEFiLM (the home entertainment subscription service, sold to Amazon in 2011), MySQL (the open-source database software, sold to Sun Microsystems in 2008) and YOOX Group (the online retailer of leading fashion brands, IPO in 2009). The current portfolio includes innovative companies such as 3D Hubs, Globoforce, Kobalt, Nutmeg, Openet, Scytl, SketchFab, Talend, The Hut Group, Tictail, Wooga and WorldStores.
About Salesforce Ventures
Salesforce Ventures—Salesforce.com's corporate investment group—invests in the next generation of enterprise technology to help companies connect with their customers in entirely new ways. Portfolio companies receive funding as well as access to the world's largest cloud ecosystem and the guidance of salesforce.com's innovators and executives. With Salesforce Ventures, portfolio companies can also leverage the expertise of the Salesforce.com Foundation to incorporate its 1-1-1 model of integrated philanthropy to make giving back part of their business model. Salesforce.com has invested in more than 100 enterprise cloud startups since 2009. For more information, please visit www.salesforce.com/ventures
[email protected]
+44 (0)1420 564346 /+44 (0)7990 520390 (Teresa Horscroft)
+44 (0)1273 470199 (Jane Lee)
Balderton's PR Consultancy, Powerscourt
Juliet Clarke / John Elliott
[email protected]
+44 (0) 20 7250 1446
