Marpipe shared components of its growth strategy with AdExchanger: streaming video, more platform integrations and leveraging its Enriched Catalogs/Dynamic Ads product within the platform. It also discussed its positioning as a creative API and its ability to sit in between the brands in all their advertising touchpoints.
New from Paloma: Instagram Sales Inbox to Help Businesses Sell Through DMs
Paloma collaborates with Instagram to enhance their Sales Inbox product, with Messenger API support for Instagram, to help businesses manage and scale their e-commerce experiences in Instagram Direct Messages.
Portfolio Spotlight: Paloma
We couldn’t be more excited to announce our newest investment: Paloma!
Paloma powers commerce on messaging channels, helping brands get >2x higher conversion rates with automated conversational shopping.
When I first met Paloma’s founder & CEO, Kelsey Hunter, I put all my cards on the table: “We’ve struggled with the e-commerce messaging space in the past because it is so crowded and the incumbent platforms have tremendous market leverage. I’m also the farthest person from Paloma’s end user -- I hate social media, and I do not shop. As someone who lives under a rock, I am not sure that I will get this, but I’d love to understand what I’m missing.”
If you’ve ever had the joy of meeting Kelsey, you can probably guess exactly how this meeting went. After roasting me just the right amount for my luddite ways, Kelsey blew me away with her expertise in the e-commerce messaging experience, her perspective of the market landscape and limitations of existing e-commerce infrastructure platforms and messaging tools, and her insights into the still nascent but burgeoning market of messaging-first -- and in some cases, messaging-only -- commerce.
Over the course of our next few meetings, it became abundantly clear that Kelsey, her co-founder/CTO Zach Podbela, and their team are onto something special. With customers like Joybird, ThirdLove and M.Gemi seeing 2-10x increases in conversion rates and a unique product suite, they have set the foundation for a category-defining platform.
Earlier this week, Paloma presented at Facebook’s F8 conference and launched the first version of IG DMs, with Paloma’s Instagram Sales Inbox. With the tailwinds of social commerce, we are thrilled to partner with Paloma as they empower not just leading brands but also the long-tail of indie merchants selling one-of-a-kind products in one-on-one exchanges.
If you run an e-commerce business searching for tooling to build your messaging storefront, sign up for a demo here. On that note, I’m off to try this online shopping thing ...
Introducing Noteworth's Connect App - a one stop shop that helps #patients take control of their health, and better manage #chronicconditions and medication compliance!
When clinicians "prescribe" Noteworth Connect, patients are empowered and actively involved in their care plan via a single, intuitive app personalized for their unique care journey. From completing pre-visit forms, to tracking medication compliance, to meeting with a provider, patients can see a clear picture of how their health is progressing, all from the comfort of home.
Legacy Portfolio Spotlight: TripleLift
Yesterday, we had the great fortune to announce TripleLift’s $1.4B majority acquisition by Vista Equity Partners. As I read through the excited messages on my subway ride home, I couldn’t help but think about the pride and joy that the TripleLift team must be feeling.
In many ways, TripleLift symbolizes the best of venture capital’s potential. We were blessed to invest in Eric Berry, Ari Lewine, and Shaun Zacharia as they were coming out of the Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator (ERA). From the very first pitch, their vision was clear: “The web is going visual.” Pinterest was beginning to gain traction, and they could see where the puck was going three moves out.
Though they encountered some hurdles along the way, they never lost focus on their belief in the visualization of the Web. Laconia’s thesis today grew out of our legacy investment in Triplelift, but more so in Eric, Ari, and Shaun.
With each of our investments, we focus on three key pillars: operational execution, sales acceleration, and capital strategy. TripleLift nailed all three.
When it comes to operational execution, they ensured nothing was overlooked. Each investor update not only included the traditional boxes that needed to be checked, but also emphasized corporate culture and employee wellness, which we found forward-thinking. We were also impressed with how they continued to upgrade their team as the business evolved, balancing loyalty to the person and responsibility to the company.
On the sales acceleration front, there was a period in the company's lifecycle when they saw the future of ad distribution becoming more programmatic. Those early partnerships accelerated their growth at a time when programmatic ad buying was also in its infancy.
But what truly separates TripleLift from the rest of the pack is their capital strategy. They checked their ego at the door and based their success on their growth instead of valuation, building a market leader on less than $20 million of total capital raised. On numerous occasions over the past 9 years, I am sure they’ve had numerous options to exit, and the strong foundation of their business enabled them to stay on course toward their long-term vision.
To our co-investors (True Ventures, Edison Partners, NextView Ventures, Inovia Capital, ERA and all the others): thank you for your partnership over these past nine years. And, most importantly, to Eric, Ari, Shaun, and the other team members we’ve had the pleasure of getting to know: thank you for your trust, and congratulations on your remarkable achievement.
We are proud to remain investors in TripleLift and look forward to having Vista Equity as part of the team. The journey does not end, and one could say it is only the beginning.